


Being yourself

by silverseed



Series: Discovering yourself [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: (By Having Badass Friends Who Can Understand And Break Those Curses), And It Doesn't Even Have A Lot To Do With The Torture Itself, And Neither Are My Characters, And Their Interactions, Arcobaleno as a Functional Team, Breaking Curses Through The Power Of Friendship, But It's Still Mostly Introspection Of The Torturee, By Getting Tangled On Another Hidden World's Conspiracies, Cue Bemoaning About Potter Luck, Found Family, Gen, Harry Goes on a Journey to Heal from All the Crap In His Life, I'm Not A Mental Health Professional, It's the First Scene if you Want To Skip It, Liberal Headcanons About Magic, Non-Graphic Torture Scene, Please Don't Take My Word As Fact, Reworking Canon Relationships So They Are Actually Healthy, Team as Family, Trying To Help With Said Mental Health Issues, discussion of mental health issues, flames, oops almost forgot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 14:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverseed/pseuds/silverseed
Summary: ...is one of the most difficult things to do, and more easily accomplished by pretending to be someone else.





	1. Harry and self-discovery

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Slip Up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15147179) by [northpeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/northpeach/pseuds/northpeach), [wolfsrainrules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsrainrules/pseuds/wolfsrainrules). 



"Are you so scared of us that you only have guts to go for the mudblood?!"

If asked, Harry would have claimed temporary insanity. It was the kind of bloody stupid taunt that would achieve nothing, except for maybe making their captors laugh and hurt Hermione. And yet, unbelievably, Bellatrix fell for it. The woman was crazy enough after a decade with the Dementors that she really bought the desperate -and frankly pathetic- gamble. She started raging over Hermione being "a pathetic, useless mudblood" and there being "no point in treating her like an actual threat".

As he was led to whatever room they had repurposed as Bellatrix's torture chamber on Malfoy Manor in place of Hermione, Harry glumly reflected that, despite -well, actually, because of- his scheme working as intended, he was going to get an earful from his friends. He actually managed a wan smile at the thought while they pushed him none-too-gently onto a chair. It figured that a trio of self-sacrificing Gryffindors like them would be so frustrating. If that last-ditch attempt to get Hermione out of the torture -and it _really_ hurt, Bellatrix's reputation was well-earned- had failed, they would have shrugged and patted him on the shoulder. "Nothing you could do, mate. You knew not even the Malfoys would fall for that" "Honestly, Harry, what did you expect? I'll overlook it just this once because you were clearly very distraught, but I expect you to never again use _that_ word. Understood, Harry James Potter?"

But it had worked. He was strapped to a chair while Bellatrix hurled curses and insults at him in equal measure. So of course he could almost see them already, tear-stained and furious. That thought coincided with a particularly painful curse and Harry's grimace deepened. The mental image of a red-faced, crying Hermione raging on him for his "saving people thing", his choices and the use of "mudblood" -that she would add out of her usual need to be thorough on her rants- was honestly more painful than any torture he had been subjected to.

That thought made him blink and almost-snort incredulously. Not because upsetting his friends bothered him more than physical pain -he had known that about himself for a while now- but because he had been subjected to torture enough times that he could honestly say that something was "worse than torture" without using hyperbole.

But it was the honest truth. After suffering through Umbridge's use of the Blood Quill on detentions and being on the receiving end of Voldemort's Cruciatus, _Bellatrix Lestrange_ didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. In fact... Harry refocused on the situation at hand, because that thought was just disturbing.

But no, there it was the evidence staring him in the face. He had even stopped screaming after the first few volleys of curses. He hadn't even _realized_.

It was such a stupid thing to discover in the middle of a torture session with _Bellatrix_ of all people that Harry had to lower his head to try and contain a slightly hysterical giggle.

He chanced a peek through his bangs and lost his battle against laughter. It was relief, and rage, and more than a little hysteria. But most of all, it was _stupid_.

Bellatrix had featured on his nightmares since that night on the Ministry. The monstruous, crazed woman that had cost him his godfather and tortured Neville's parents into insanity. Voldemort's most trusted. Expert duelist. Terror of Wizarding Britain.

Try as he might, Harry couldn't see that when he looked at her. He saw a thin, crazy woman shooting spells at him with a mixture of furious anger and more than a little bewilderment.

He was literally helpless before her. She could do _anything_. And her worst barely managed to coax some grunts out of him. So Harry was angry, because this woman had cost him _so much_. To him and to _so many_ people. But the woman herself was a malnourished, crazed mess that looked like she was going to actually burst into tears like a toddler throwing a tantrum if he continued to ignore her "torture".

Harry had faced Voldemort and his Death Eaters. He had faced straight-up assassination attempts. He had faced _more than a hundred Dementors_. He had faced _a thousand-year-old Basilisk and a shade of Voldemort **at the same time**_. Bellatrix? She barely registered as a threat.

Harry let the last of his laughter fade and closed his eyes in an effort to calm down. He exhaled a deep sigh with his eyes still closed and idly wondered if Bellatrix was truly so pathetic compared with everything he had already faced that he couldn't even tell if she was still shooting curses at him.

(In the oppossite side of the room, Bellatrix lowered her wand without even being conscious of it. The explosion of strange purple fire that had accompanied the brat's baffling hysteria had not damaged the chair or his bindings, and she wasn't sure what, if anything, it would do now that it seemed that the purple magic was receding. She wasn't used to this strange feeling of uncertainity and didn't know what it meant)

It didn't really matter, though. Because with the _I am actually not scared of Bellatrix_ epiphany there had been two other equally clear statements that appeared on his head and Harry felt were overwhelming _fact_.

Namely, _I still hate her_ and _I will **tear her apart**_.

Harry opened his eyes and gave Bellatrix what could only be described as a predatory grin. He knew the glint on his eyes was probably more than a little disquieting, but didn't care. Bellatrix was going to pay, sooner or later, at his hand or at someone else's. It was going to happen, Harry felt it to his very bones. So he looked at her and _smiled_.

(Bellatrix felt the breath freeze on her lungs and remembered what that feeling was. _Fear_ )

At that moment, a flurry of activity from Ron, Hermione and Dobby's rescue attempt interrupted them. Harry felt more than a little proud that, even bleeding and shaking from the after-effects of so many curses as he was, he managed to punch Draco in the jaw.

 _Definetely satisfying_ he thought _I totally understand why Hermione did it back on Third Year._

* * *

After the war ended, the bodies were buried and their studies completed (and he needed to do something nice for McGonagall, because having the DA -what remained of them- and his friends around, along with distracting classes and projects had been _exactly_ what he needed) Harry found himself trying to work out what to do with his life. It didn't help matters that there was a niggling on the back of his mind that always stopped him from applying for entrance on the Auror program, or from rekindling his relationship with Ginny. And it was that whenever those matters came up, his mind flashed back to that day on Malfoy Manor, strapped to a chair and the realization that _Bellatrix didn't scare him_.

He didn't know how to properly explain what was happening to him or why something so objectively minor in the grand scheme of things had felt like such a huge thing to him, but it didn't give him rest because he always felt that there was another epiphany there, just out of reach. So he did what he always did whenever something came up that he didn't know how to solve on his own and talked about it with his friends.

"I dunno, mate. How would we know something about you that you didn't?"

That was true, but he really would appreciate another perspective. So he gave Ron his best deadpan stare for the supremely unhelpful answer and tried to explain himself better.

"But that's the thing!" he smoothed -ineffectively- his hair out in exasperation "It's about myself, so I should know what it's about, but I don't get it"

He scowled at the persistent thought, even now fluttering just out of reach, but Hermione darted forward before he could truly become frustrated.

"You said you didn't know Bellatrix had stopped scaring you until you were face to face, right?"

"Yeah. I know it's kind of stupid compared with all the other discoveries we made during the war, but... It felt huge, you know?" He cringed a little at the lame ending, but couldn't really explain it better.

Hermione seemed to have understood something nonetheless, because she was nodding in that way that indicated she had just discovered the answer they were looking for.

"So you are wondering what else you don't know about yourself"

It wasn't even phrased as a question, and Harry had to blink because that... that felt _right_.

"Yeah! I mean, it's **me** , shouldn't I know everything about myself?"

Hermione actually rolled her eyes at him "Self-discovery is a long road, Harry James Potter. There are actually entire philosophies and ways of life dedicated exclusively to it"

At their baffled looks, Hermione huffed in the frustrated aggravation usually reserved for when she tried -unsusccesfully- to explain advanced theories on magic and tried using smaller words.

"No, you won't automatically know everything about yourself just because it's your own mind. In fact, most people have moments like those when they discover things they didn't know about themselves, and it's not rare for people to go on a journey of self-discovery, or go into meditation, or any number of different things just for the purpose of knowing themselves better."

"What would traveling have to do with self-discovery?" Harry hadn't meant to ask that, but the word _journey_ had suddenly evoked half-forgotten daydreams about leaving everything behind and never, ever returning. They had used to plague him on his time with the Dursleys, but abated with his introduction to the Wizarding World. He had completely written off those fantasies because he had a responsability with the War... that had already ended.

Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face (or, as he had privately suspected for some time now, Hermione had a talent for Legilimency), because her answer was delivered with the kind of knowing smile that meant that she was plotting something for him.

"Traveling means discovering new places, meeting new people and basically being in completely new situations. It's very common for people to think that they will react a certain way to something, only to discover when they are faced with it that their first impulse is something completely different"

"Why don't you try it, mate? If it works, you'll discover all that is bothering you. At worst, you had a nice vacation"

Harry felt himself warm to the idea, then his shoulders slumped suddenly. "And what of the Wizarding people?"

"We tell them to bugger off! You bloody well can take a vacation if you want to, Harry"

"Ron is right. You are tying yourself down to Wizarding Britain when you have _no need to_. If you want to take your things and go on a sabbatical or... or even spend your whole life traveling the world, the only one who's stopping you is you"

Harry had to smile at the wobble on Hermione's voice when she voiced the possibility of him not returning, but he just shook his head sadly.

"I don't mean it like that. I mean that I really not fancy going to different places and getting the whole _Oh my gosh, it's the Boy-Who-Lived_ reception again and again"

"I think they are calling you Man-Who-Conquered now" Ron offered unhelpfully, then grinned unrepentantly at the dirty look the comment earned him.

Hermione straightened suddenly, a look of pure glee on her face they had gotten used to seeing whenever she had one of those bright ideas that had saved their hides more times than they could count.

"So pretend to be someone else!"

Harry had to blink in shocked bafflement, because that was not the brilliant plan he had been expecting.

"Uh... Hate to break it to you, 'Mione, but that kind of defeats the purpose of Harry traveling to discover himself."

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron's words and Harry's hesitantly agreeing nod. The boys exchanged glances, because that was her _my great idea will not be constricted by your "impossibilities"_ expression.

"We are more than our names and our appearence. What Harry wants to know is what he ignores about his _personality_. So he just has to forge an alias, and he'll be free to explore without people's expectations weighing on him."

Yep, convulted, illogical, and perfectly possible. Harry had to grin. Just like brewing Polyjuice on Myrtle's bathroom.

"That could actually work..." He cut himself off with a surprised blink, because he hadn't even considered the idea of traveling properly and he was already planning how to put it into practice. He tried to direct a narrow-eyed look of suspicion at his friends, but it was ruined by the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. Hermione and Ron didn't even have the decency of disguising their smug looks, the arses.

* * *

As was becoming irritating habit, putting his idea to practice hit more snags and complications than it solved.

Emptying Grimmauld Place had been accomplished with gleeful ease (no matter how much he had loved Sirius, that place had never stopped giving him the creeps), but going on a journey was much more complicated than that.

He couldn't Apparate somewhere he had never been to (and even if he could, he had a nasty suspicion that International Apparition was a bit above him), International Portkeys were even more strictly regulated than normal ones and even if he could floo to Bill and Fleur's home on France the Ministry kept an eye on International Floo and the public would know where he was in a matter of hours. Not to mention France was a bit too close to Britain for his tastes.

That left traveling the Muggle way, which simplified the "forging a fake identity" part and complicated the "disguise himself" part. He had no intentions of pulling a Crouch Jr. and spending his entire time traveling as a real person. The whole point of the disguise was to create a blank slate and act naturally. Not worry about someone else's reputation, even if one of his friends volunteered hair samples for him. Not to mention having to pretend to be a drunk or at the very least compulsively addicted to a drink for the ruse to work.

But glamours could and did fail. On the Wizarding World that wouldn't be a problem unless he wanted to enter a Ministry or a branch of Gringotts, the rest of the places would let him be. Most people would simply assume he was hiding some kind of scar or facial disfigurement -which wasn't even false- and it would be a simple matter of reapplying the enchantments when he felt them start to falter.

Obviously, that wasn't an option on the Muggle world.

He could probably go without a disguise on the Muggle world, but it would only take a single wizard for his damnable fame to catch up to him.

He might be biased, but Muggle disguises seemed obvious and unreliable to him. And there was no way he would be able to cross national borders with one of those stupid-looking fake beards or wigs on.

Harry scowled at nothing while he walked aimlessly through London. The negligible weight of his shrunken belongings seemed to mock him for his hasty and ill-planned departure.

A surly-looking teen seemed to think the expression was directed at him, because he glared right back. Harry actually stopped in shock while the kid snorted and walked past him, though it wasn't his expression that had given him pause.

Rather, it was what the teen had been _wearing_.

With a steadily growing -and probably creepy- grin on his face, Harry made a beeline for the nearest clothing store.

Twenty minutes later, Harry left the store with a bike suit neatly folded on his bag. Not exactly the goth look the kid had been sporting, but equally good as a disguise when paired with a helmet -which, annoyingly, he would have to buy on a different, especialized store.

In a flash of inspiration -because never taking off the helmet when he actually got one would be irritatingly inconvenient- he entered yet another store, this time looking for hair dye and make-up.

After browsing for ten solid minutes with a mystified expression on his face, a shop assistant finally took pity on him. Apparentely, his black hair left him with very few options in regards to dye that would actually take, so he selected a purple one and -at the employee's poorly hidden look of astonishment- made up a story about losing a bet and having to give himself a makeover that left him looking as unlike his usual appearence as possible.

They laughed a bit at the story and the girl gamely explained to him how to apply the hair dye, as well as the white make-up that she swore up and down was not strange at all in goths, that also had the advantage of being fairly easy to use. He literally just had to spread it evenly on his whole face.

(Harry wisely decided not to mention that that was what he had thought applying any kind of make-up was like)

Afterwards, and on the shop assistant's recommendation, he went to an Optometrist in search of contacts. He was overjoyed to find that he could even get graduated _colored_ lenses, and selected a couple of purple ones that matched the hair dye on a whim.

* * *

Hours later, and with his disguise finally complete, Harry grinned at the mirror. He looked just like one of those "ruffians" his Aunt Petunia had always felt dismayed about encountering. A surprisingly strong surge of vindicativeness accompanied the idle thought of visiting her just to see her gasp and puff up, but he dismissed it with a rueful shake of his head. He wasn't that petty.

He had had to rent a hotel room in the end, but not even the fact that _yes, he had left way too soon without a proper plan_ could tamper down his glee at having finished his disguise...

Harry facepalmed and started the tedious process of removing everything -make-up, contacts and bike suit. He couldn't go to bed dressed like that, after all.

While his features steadily went back to his original look, he tried to think about an alias. It wouldn't do to stumble around like that again when concerning his new name.

Morbidly, for the first few minutes every name he came up with was accompanied by the image of a dead friend or acquaintance. Harry scowled in aggravation and gave up.

_Fine, I haven't recovered from the trauma of the War. I get the hint._

He sat on the bed and, in true Gryffindor fashion, went for the most effective way of dealing with trauma, uncaring that it was also the most emotionally taxing.

After several minutes of replaying and rationalizing the War -and his many failures in it- on his head he felt a little depressed, but less like his own thoughts were swirling like smoke around his mind, waiting for him to let his guard down like an ambush.

When he went back to think about aliases it occurred to him that he was going to spend his time traveling discovering himself AND expunging his demons. He might have gotten enough practice at dealing with the trauma that a couple of minutes of meditation before going to bed guarded off the worst of the nightmares, but he didn't have illussions that he was anywhere near recovered.

However, taking a break from Britain could only help him cope. He might have needed his friends by his side _breathing, moving, alive_ on the immediate aftermath, but at that point continuing to help with a reconstruction that never seemed to end was doing more harm than good... Maybe he should choose something related to the War as an alias.

It was a bizarre idea, but it took root in his mind. It made sense, after all. This new identity was going to be a blank slate, but his past weighed on him and ignoring or trying to forget that would just be counterproductive.

So Harry closed his eyes and thought about the War. The first thing that came to mind was the Dark Mark. So, with all the solemnity and weight that such a symbol and the choice of his new name warranted, Harry decided that his new name was going to be Skull.


	2. Oodako and embarrassment

Harry’s, or rather, _Skull’s_ first destination was chosen, much like his new name, with all due solemnity. In this case, by the tried-and-true method of dart throwing.

Since the section of map in which the dart landed was actually open ocean, Skull chose instead the nearest landmass, which just so happened to be another island: Japan. So that same morning he took his things, booked a flight and left Britain behind with a grin and in high spirits.

He _abhorred_ it.

Japan was just as close-minded towards foreigners and prone to gossipy, judgemental people as Wizarding Britain at its worst. If they weren’t giving him the evil eye for being a _Gaijin_ –and thank Merlin for translation charms, because he didn’t even want to think what facing all that AND a language barrier would have been like-, it was because of his appearance or, in one truly bizarre case, because he was wearing a bike suit but did not possess a bike.

Apparentely they took offence at having their preconceptions challenged. Granted, wearing bike clothes when he didn’t have one was more than a little strange, but he hadn’t expected _outrage_ from the “true bikers”. Which were apparentely a _thing_ , with inclusive communities, specific bars and hang-outs and, all in all, completely barmy members.

The Wizarding World had seemed odd to him when he was eleven, as he hadn’t been able to wrap his head around people devoting their lives to magic to the exclusion of everything else. He had to bow to these bikers, though, because the wizards back home had _nothing_ on them.

He hadn’t even known it was _possible_ to dedicate oneself to a single, such ordinary-seeming thing as bikes and make it into a whole way of life.

He was kind of scared of what else he might discover on his travels, shuddering at visions of whole different societies hidden from the Muggle AND Wizarding worlds. Then he reflected on his life until that point, all the suppossedly “legendary” or impossible things he had faced –Slytherin’s fabled Chamber came to mind- and snorted. There was no point in worrying. If there truly were other hidden societies he’d be thrown headfirst into them when he least expected it, 100% guaranteed.

So Skull shrugged and, since nobody knew anything about him or had any kind of expectations, did what he had wished he could have done more than once on his childhood whenever the public turned against him.

Being loud and obnoxious felt a little embarrassing at first, but people’s outraged reactions more than made up for it, and he took great delight in using the most arrogant and immature ways of speech in the Japanese language. Which he may have accidentally-on-purpose butchered by referring to himself in the third person and with honorifics.

He even used “sama”, the highest form of respect, when referring to himself just to see the natives cringe.

Not all of his interactions with Japanese people were based on distrust or pettiness, though. He found that he had a surprising fondness for small children, and playing with the - _innocent, cheerful, unbroken-_ tykes was soothing to him. Even if he thought that their parents should keep a more vigilant eye on them and not let them play alone with any stranger that passed by.

He _did_ find out things he had ignored about himself, as well. It turned out, he _liked_ attention. Granted, he liked little kiddies’ attention when he was enterteining them, but he did like it.

He found it amusing to imagine Snape hollering “I told you so! I told you all!” from the afterlife at that discovery.

* * *

Kawahira may have been a little desperate. He _needed_ a Cloud, because he had had his sights set on candidates for every other Element for a while now and the Cloud was the only one missing so he could finally pass the Curse onto seven new Arcobaleno. Which is why he might not have been as thorough as he normally would have been.

In his defence, he had simply seen a teen wearing bike clothes with an incredible amount of Cloud Flames that he very obviously didn't know how to use, considering they were manifesting primarly internally. So he had assumed that he was a Japanese civilian on his rebel phase that had the misfortune of Activating (probably through a bike accident) his Cloud Flames and not looked a gift horse in the mouth.

In retrospect, he probably should have looked a bit deeper into it, because the kid's reaction at being told about Flames and that he could be part of _Il Prescelti Sette_ was not at all normal civilian behaviour.

He had expected disbelief until he demonstrated, and afterwards wariness or -considering what he had seen of the kid's character until that point- bravado.

He had _not_ expected the kid to direct him the most deadpanned expression he had ever seen, as if he had just told him the punchline to a truly terrible joke. He might have written that off as disbelief if it wasn't for the teen's completely unruffled expression when he demonstrated his own Flames.

(If he hadn't been so very _old_ and so very powerful, he might have actually felt embarrassed at the incredibly underwhelming reaction. Cheeky brat even had the gall to raise an eyebrow at him)

But the truly deciding factor was the pained groan and muttering that had ensued afterward. He hadn't heard everything, but he could catch the phrases "Shouldn't have tempted fate", "Potter Luck strikes again" and, most oddly, "Ron is going to bust a gut laughing".

That last line reminded him to warn the brat about _Omertá_ and he helpfully created an illusion of Vindice to drive the point home.

(It was not that he was miffed about being ignored and wanted to scare the whelp. Really. It was not)

* * *

Ron did not, in fact, bust a gut laughing. But it came close.

He hadn't even been able to open his mouth. Ron had just taken a look at his getup and started cackling, so he had asked a suspiciously lip-twitching, shoulder-shaking Hermione about the people's reaction at his disappearence while Ron got the laughter out of his system.

"Oh, there has not been even a whisper. Everyone assumes you are living and working like any other completely normal wizard"

Harry felt his eyebrows climb as high as they could go. His expression of incredulity seemed to be the last straw for Hermione, because she joined Ron in laughing, though thankfully only for a minute.

"Hehe. Don't look at me like that Harry, what did you expect would happen after we trounced the _Prophet_ for libel, slander and anything else we could think of?"

And suddenly the world made sense again. He had to grin at that memory. Best extracurrilar project ever.

(He'd treasure McGonagall's deadpan expression when he explained that "it would feel weird to go a whole school year without some kind of altercation, 'eighth year' or not" until the end of his days)

"Hahaha... aahh. Whew. It's been a long time since I laughed that hard. So what brings you back here so soon, mate? Missed us too much?"

The following explanation had Ron in stitches _again_ , so he resigned himself to waiting him out. At least they had prepared snacks in anticipation of his visit.

(Even if the Post Owl he had rented to let them know had been horribly slow and they had had to prepare for his arrival in really short notice. Things like those made him love his friends all the more, no matter how much they made fun of his terrible luck)

When Ron finally stopped laughing -hopefully for the rest of the conversation at least- Harry raised a brow with what he felt was great aplomb, in what he knew Ron would be able to correctly interpret as a "you done yet?" expression.

"So... there is yet another hidden society in this world and they are laying a trap for you."

Harry nodded at Ron's accurate summary. "Unless you know anything about Flames, then yes, most probably."

"And he didn't give you any books? References? Did he say anything about how Flames interacted with magic? Or is this Checkerface unaware of the Wizarding world? What was your Flame's Attribute suppossed to be?"

"Blimey, Hermione, one question at a time! Let the poor bloke answer."

"Oh, but Ron this is so exciting! Aren't you curious about a whole different society that was able to hide from the Muggles and from us?"

"He didn't really volunteer a lot of information, which would make sense considering he was obviously trying to make me fall into some sort of trap. Wasn't even subtle about it."

"So what'd he say to try and make you do what he wanted? Offered you information on these Flames?"

Harry almost smiled. For all that he had appeared unruffled, Ron was very much on the ball when it came to prepare for another "Harry-level clusterfuck" -Ron's words, not his.

"Nah. He told me I had a spot among the World's Strongest Seven Flame users. Used a fancy name for it in Italian, too. I have a nasty suspicion it's another Merlin-damned title that everyone will know about and that will mean nothing to me."

"So definetely a trap then. Merlin, Harry! We left you alone for _three months_."

"And how is this my fault?"

"Boys! Concentrate. At least this tells us that he's probably unaware of the Wizarding World. Either that or he didn't recognize Harry."

"Or he believed that I really am an arrogant, attention-seeking idiot."

" _Please_. The _Prophet_ spent our entire youth either singing your praises or demonizing you. Then we got into a legal battle with them -also very public- on our last year of Hogwarts and they haven't said a single word about you since. If he was able to tell that you have this Cloud Flames when you yourself hadn't realized he can't have been a complete moron."

Harry felt his lips twitching upwards at the glint on Hermione's eyes when she said the words "Cloud Flames" and resigned himself to indulging her curiosity. It was not like she would have let him out of her presence without first extracting every last scrap of information anyway.

"I almost didn't believe that I had this power, to be honest. But I tried and I really saw purple fire a couple of times. They are difficult to manifest, though. Checkerface said that I have been using them internally subconsciously, and that their ability is Propagation. Said that they probably multiplied my blood and regeneration rate whenever I had a bike accident."

Hermione blinked. "You bought a bike?"

Harry smirked. "Nope. Either he was just looking for the first gullible Cloud he could find and made assumptions based on my appearence or he was suggesting a cover story for the rest of the seven."

"Why would you need a cover story for the other six?" Ron was looking worried. Harry concentrated on his encounter with that strange man, trying to catch whatever it was that had made Ron suspicious even after they had established that this was probably a trap.

"Dunno. He just said that they had been part of that world for a long time. I also got the impression that they were kinda secretive. Even amongst each other, I mean."

That impression was also helped by the image he had showed him at the end. The Vindice hadn't scared him as much as frozen his blood with a horrible suspicion. The origin of Dementors was one mystery he had had no intentions of trying to solve, and he could only wish that his first thought after seeing the _black-cloaked, corpse-like_ enforcers had been wrong.

" _Internal Propagation_?" Hermione seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion, because she looked truly excited "You mean you may have multiplied the strength of your magic?"

That question brought Harry up short. It did make sense, though, because he had been a truly average student at Hogwarts, and yet he had always managed to muster up enough power to match spells with the Dark Lord -sometimes literally- whenever the need arose. Driving off a hundred Dementors with a single _Patronus_ came to mind.

"It could be. I've done a lot of things that don't make sense even counting for Magic over the years. Like on the Chamber of Secrets. I should by all rights have passed out from the pain."

He rolled his eyes at their grimaces. It was ancient history and not even on his top ten of worst memories. Granted, if he told them that it would only make them more worried, not less.

"And did he say why you have this power? Are you their equivalent to a muggleborn?"

Harry nodded in gratitude at Hermione moving the conversation forward. "Actually, apparentely everyone has Flames. It's just that most people are Latent, because you need to have a near death experience for them to Activate. But I'm probably their equivalent to a muggleborn -though they just call Muggles "civilians"- because I wasn't raised in their society. Apparentely they have safer ways to Activate Flames nowadays."

"So you've had your Flames Active internally... what, since you were one?" Hermione was looking upset, but Harry thought that he probably didn't look much better.

"It seems possible. I mean, I never had problems with my immune system or anything from malnutrition and I know that by all rights I should have. Accidental magic is not that powerful or stable, certainly not enough to negate the consequences of poor diet through a whole childhood" Aside from a slight stunting of his growth that he knew about not so much because it was noticeable but because both of his parents had been much taller than he was.

It really was pathetic that he couldn't even bring himself to finish his train of thought in front of his two best friends. Though it was progress from when he was a kid and unable to so much as bring up his relatives' treatment of him, he suppossed.

"They call Muggles "civilians"? What are they, some sort of militaristic society?"

Harry was grateful for the change in subject, though he knew very well that Ron's dark expression was not directed at the idea of a militaristic secret society trying to get their claws on him. Or at least not entirely.

"I honestly have no idea. I don't think so, though. They wouldn't consider me part of 'the Strongest' if they were, don't you think?"

"I just don't want these people to make you fight somebody else's war for them. Again."

Harry raised an incredulous eyebrow at that. "That's what you think of my involvement on the Wizarding World?"

"Mate, you are like an extra brother to me. And I understand that this is your home, and that you were probably the only one that could rid us of You-Know-Who for good. But as your friend? If I met you tomorrow in the Hogwarts Express for the first time again I'd tell you to run and never look back."

"I have to agree with Ron on this one, Harry. You didn't deserve what happened to you, and I'd hate for this to be a repeat of everything we've gone through, only this time without us."

Harry was stunned speechless for a moment, oddly touched. For _Ronald Weasley_ to say that he'd rather risk Voldemort -a man whose name he was _still_ unable to say- to come back than watch him suffer was...

And then Hermione's words registered and an unholy grin lit up his face.

"But I'm not the same as back then. I could probably take whatever they want to throw me at." He saw their mouths begin to open -probably to berate him for overconfidence- and smirked "Which is why I'm going to play to Checkerface's impression of me being a clueless civilian."

Harry snickered at their confused looks. "It's simple, really. They either know that I'm stronger than I look or are trying to trick some poor sod into what is probably going to be a dangerous position. So I'll play the part of bike-obsessed "civilian" until I know which one it is. I have to protect the Statute of Secrecy, after all. And if they really want a sacrificial lamb to fight their battles for them... Well, too bad for them that Skull is no soldier."

The moment was immediately ruined at his friends' reaction at hearing his new name, so Harry -no, it was Skull again now- rolled his eyes while Ron had his third laughing fit of the conversation.

* * *

A week later Skull was back in Japan and buying a bike. Unfortunately for him, the _true bikers_ frequented that particular shop.

Due to a series of events that Skull would insist with his dying breath were motivated by his need to build a cover story, two months later Skull de Mort, "The Immortal Stuntman" became a mildly famous entertainer.

(Though, no matter how much he insisted it was "for the sake of the cover", Ron and Hermione still guessed that his career as a street performer began because of his intense dislike for condescending mentor-types intent on 'educating him on the fine art of X'. Which was completely unfair, because Skull had thought of that as the most unfortunately-timed self-discovery ever -not that he was admitting to anything. Their incredulous looks and pointed mention of Severus Snape was met with a disgruntled expression.)

After making sure that his name was reasonably well-known on the region he had been visiting when Checkerface made his offer and basking on the happiness that pretending to be a muggle while using a name based on a certain hypocritical half-blood gave him, Skull made the last arrangements before venturing into a whole new world.

Rescuing a live octopus from the clutches of a takoyaki stand owner was not _exactly_ what he had had in mind, but it worked perfectly well for his purpose.

He made sure that the man manning the stall had an easy time of following after him -without ever actually reaching him, of course- and to stumble and fall comically several times during the chase.

When he finally gave up and just retorted to insulting him and threats about calling the police Skull sat there and listened politely, after which he very calmly and earnestly asked the first child he saw what he should name his new pet.

Oodako seemed to like its new name, so Skull had no complaints either.

That night, after meditating, Skull made sure to surround the memory of how he got Oodako in Occlumency magic meant to let him recall the incident in vivid detail whenever he needed to. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, but he was very sadly aware that he would almost definetely need every last scrap of that mortification whenever his "saving people thing" reared its ugly head, especially considering he was going to enter a completely new society.

His original plan had been to overreact to an actual human's distress, hence preemptively fulfilling his need to help people and creating the same association with intense embarrassment. He had ended up with an octopus because he had mistakenly thought that Oodako was attacking the stall owner at first, but if anything the mix-up would be to his benefit. After all, creating a psychological link between his "saving people thing", intense embarrassment *and* the lesson that not everything was as it seemed could only be an advantage when about to start navigating a society whose rules he didn't know yet.


	3. Arcobaleno and introspection

Mafia.

Skull dedicated a couple of minutes to cursing Checkerface's woefully inadequate explanations (Hermione would be _apalled_. And probably swear revenge) before dragging a hand down his face and sighing deeply.

Right, so fact one: he was in way over his head. More than usual, even.

Fact two: if this was the "public" face of this society -the first impression newly minted Flame Users like him got- then he was actually starting to worry about what it would be like when the trap sprung and the conspiracy, or war, or whatever it was revealed itself.

Fact three: it was too late to back down.

He had spent a week scouting the place where the meeting was to take place, but he had only seen a pregnant woman going about her business in the small cottage. Certainly nothing that would prepare him for the reality of this society.

That thrice-damned Checkerface had waved away all his questions and not offered any information, so he had already known that he was flying blind and that whatever it was he was not being told was probably bad, but he had not honestly expected _this_.

Apparentely he still retained some measure of optimism, who knew?

He had been so confident, too. Thanks to his mask of incompetent civilian, being the last to arrive would only help to reinforce the image he wanted to send _and_ allow him to get a glimpse of the other "Strongest" as they got there.

It had not been enough. Not by a long shot.

He had arrived, made an arse of himself and, just as he was feeling confident that he would be deemed too loud, obnoxious and useless to be part of the group, the smiling pregnant woman had dropped the bombshell on him. _Because he was a civilian and if he was going to help out on the "jobs" they needed to do in order to get their title he needed a briefing._

His expression of horror at those words had not been in any way faked.

He had given honest consideration to the idea of just running and coming back with a squad of Aurors -because he definetely did not want Checkerface or the other six trying to track him down- when they got offered room and board for the duration of said jobs. _Politely_.

Gently smiling pregnant women should not look that foreboding. Much less while offering baked goods.

The other five seemed to think the same, because their agreement had been way too fast, no matter how cool and collected they tried to act.

* * *

Reborn tilted his fedora down to hide his frown. He had deliberately antagonized the civilian kid who seemed to be doing his utmost to get out of this situation, but his very obvious "let's ditch the newbie" attitude had been dismissed out of hand. That was suspicious and slightly worrying. There didn't seem to be a simple way to get out of the almost-definetely-an-ambush.

He had known from the beginning that the whole "Strongest Seven" title seemed fishy and that going along with it would most probably lead him straight into a trap, but the situation was even more complicated than initially assumed.

The Donna of the Giglio Nero family was the only one who seemed to know anything about Checkerface or even what they were suppossed to be doing. Not to mention the politely phrased demand for them all to live together for the duration of the "jobs". That made her the most suspicious, but being in the thick of the mafia as she was, not to mention pregnant, made this whole farce a truly convulted and dangerous way to ambush them considering she had more than enough resources to eliminate them one by one at her leisure and far more easily.

The (possibly) civilian Cloud was not as dumb as he portrayed himself to be, but his efforts were moot because of his truly terrible acting. He was so obvious about trying to get out of the situation by pretending to be incompetent that Reborn gave serious thought to the possibility of him being the plant and just pretending to be a bad actor. The moment when his façade cracked at the word "mafia" made him doubt that, though -his face had had "hitman who found out mid-mission that the target was FAR more dangerous than anticipated" all over it.

The infamous information broker and really powerful Mist he discarded as a suspect almost on principle. Someone like her -no matter how much she tried to hide it, that build was very obviously feminine- had more than enough resources without resorting to something like this, just like the Giglio Nero Donna. However, the fact that she didn't hint at information on their jobs made him very, very wary. The infamous miser wouldn't have hesitated about fleecing them for a heads-up on whatever the trap was, and since she hadn't that meant one of two things. Either she was in on whatever this was or the best information broker in the world didn't know _anything_ about it. Neither of those options was good.

The Triads' most powerful enforcer was another tough sell. On the one hand, ambushing several important movers and shakers of the Italian Underworld would be a _very bold move indeed_ , that would almost assuredly mean another mafia war. The Vindice would get involved almost with absolute certainity, and that was if the scheme worked at all. On the other hand, if it worked they would get a huge boost in reputation and territory. In the end, though, he didn't think it was the Storm. He was outwardly calm, but he kept his back to the wall at all times and scrutinized them just like all of them (save the Giglio Nero Donna) scrutinized each other. From Reborn's experience with backstabbers, if he had a group at his back ready to help him decimate them, his attention would be focused on his comrades' signals and he'd be trying to look innocent by demanding explanations, not fly under the radar.

The Rain whose attire and body language screamed "obviously military" was the only one who had brought obvious back-up. The blond who had come with her and promptly hid on the forest surrounding the house -which was making him really twitchy, because if isolation with unknown elements wasn't enough, they now had a _sniper_ right outside- seemed to be content just with observing at the moment, but he didn't doubt he'd come to her aid at a moment's notice. That actually was what convinced him that they were not behind whatever the hell this was suppossed to be, because no matter how good blondie was, one man did not an ambush make. At least not a very good one.

The Lightning who seemed to enjoy flaunting the "mad scientist" stereotype was another one that didn't make sense. He, just like the Cloud kid, did not fit the "Strongest" image and didn't seem to have a lot of fighting experience. Yet, he was there, just as seemingly wary as the rest of them and occassionally chose to creep them out with his talk about "experimentation". He didn't know if he was trying a more subtle variant on the Cloud's I-am-clearly-here-by-mistake strategy or if he just enjoyed putting people off, though going by the darkly amused expression on his face he'd give it good odds of being both.

So he was no closer to figuring this out, surrounded by secretive and dangerous people and completely isolated from the world save for the military woman's pet sniper. Joy.

* * *

Lal Mirch was Annoyed. Having to leave COMSUBIN when her lover and her manifested their Flames had been bad enough, but apparentely their military training made them highly powerful Elements. Which translated into highly coveted or, in plain terms, ambush bait. They were slowly but surely making a name for themselves, but unsavory Famiglias "offering" them contracts was still a common ocurrence.

The situation they found themselves in at that moment had to be the most obviously suspicious in a very long time, though. Not only had Lal received almost no information, her "colleagues" were obviously suspicious and scrutinizing of everybody.

She would wonder what kind of moron brought so many dangerous and distrustful people together and expected any kind of teamwork, but then she remembered that it was the same moron who wore a checkered mask and named himself "Checkerface".

Not one of them was using their real name, save maybe for the Giglio Nero Donna, and in her case it was more than probably simply because she was in on whatever was going on. At least Lal herself had chosen a plausible name, like the Chinese martial artist.

Fon was a very obvious name for anyone of his ethnicity and even mildly westernized, but at least it _could_ be his name. Skull and Viper had at least had the decency of choosing aliases that went well with their images. It would at least be believable if they claimed that those were the names they were most often referred to as. Reborn and Verde, though, hadn't even tried.

She didn't know if it was an indication of their cockiness, a jab at the very obvious trap they all were in or if they just didn't care, but something in her _itched_ at the unprofessionalism. And she fully acknowledged the hypocrisy on that sentiment when her lover chose "Colonello" of all things as his handle, but they were together. She was allowed to think it was endearing on him.

Lal gnawed on her bottom lip. Of course, yet another reason why this situation sucked so much was that she couldn't let those feelings show. Pretending that Lal was unaware of Colonello's position on the forest and that he was there to woo her had been the only excuse they had been able to come up with on such short notice, but it didn't mean that she had to like it.

Especially because the ruse included her acting like she was rejecting his advances, which she was not happy about. His cheeky "But you are so hot when you get all fierce, kora!" had gotten him a kick to the head, but it wasn't enough to make him change his mind on their strategy.

* * *

Viper _twitched_ on her room. She was aware of everyone's position on the house -all of them in their repective rooms and just as agitated as she was, though the Cloud was bordering on panic judging by his agitated pacing. It was not enough. Not by a long shot.

She thrived on information. It was her weapon, her shield and her way of life. There was _no way_ she would be okay with flying blind in any kind of situation, especially one where so many things raised red flags.

Checkerface especially unnerved her, because she knew _nothing_ about him. She had never heard of him, and that **_didn't make sense_**.

When he tracked her down (red flag number one) and told her that he knew who she was (red flag number two) she was ready to defend herself, with the only thing that stopped her being the knowledge that he was stronger than her.

And then he had the gall to call her the strongest Mist in the world. She had raised an eyebrow at him, though he wouldn't have been able to see it. He told her that while sitting right in front of her, with his _clearly stronger_ Mist Flames swirling around them. It had been honestly humiliating.

Viper did not deal well with humiliation.

(Memories of the Sorting Hat shouting "SQUIB!" rose unbidden and were banished just as quickly)

Her temper, hidden as she usually kept it, had gotten her in trouble then, making her arrogantly stroll into his little ambush. She had expected to be coerced into joining a Famiglia, or some idiot whose finances she ruined out for revenge. She had not expected to see some very powerful and _twitchy_ individuals in a similar situation as her, everyone playing the "Guess who's the traitor" game.

She had not expected time to cool off and realize what a terrible idea coming here without information was.

And as much as she prided herself on her information network, she was not infallible.

Reborn and Luce were famous enough that she knew their exploits for the past half a year by heart. Fon was very active on Asia and someone she had lots of files on.

It was still not enough to completely rule any of them out as Checkerface's agent. If he even had one. She, more than anyone, knew how a truly powerful Mist could take advantage of knowing where a target was. They could be spied on _at that very moment_ and not even she would notice.

And that was without mentioning the other three that were making her more paranoid each passing second.

Verde was famous as a scientist, so she didn't have as much information on him since she rarely dealt on information about scientific advacement. But he had bugs, both on the literal and "listening devices" sense, and even a few that were a mix of the two and she _didn't know what they were doing or what information they were providing him with_.

Lal was barely a footnote on her files because she appeared very recently. The only reason why she even knew of her was that she was strong and, consequently, both her and her lover had potential to be influential. A lover that she brought with her and was out there on the forest _where Viper could not control his movements_.

And then there was Skull. Young, very recently civilian. _Complete unknown_. Not only that, but so very obviously hiding something it wasn't even funny. Especially because the damn brat was the worst actor she had ever met, but that didn't mean jack shit if his horrible acting only told her what he _wasn't_. The most-probably-teen -she'd eat her cowl if he was a day over twenty- didn't know a damn thing about how true bikers acted, but that didn't help her figure out what he _actually_ was.

* * *

Fon breathed deeply and tried to find the "Eye" of his Storm. Making the whole house vanish in a bonfire of red Flames was not a viable option, no matter how tempted he was.

This whole situation was horribly stressing, as well as _infuriatingly_ unnecessary. He was the Triad's only _neutral_ enforcer. He already knew he was the most powerful Storm around. He had zero interst in the title of "Strongest of the World".

But of course, the bosses wanted him to acquire that title. Even if he wasn't strictly their subordinate, the fact that he worked primarly with them meant that any boost to his reputation reflected on them.

Not that he believed for a _second_ that that was their only reason, of course. In fact, he was pretty sure that the main motivator was that if someone tried to ambush Fon and he crushed them by himself they would look strong and confident in his abilities.

That, and if someone tried to ambush Fon and _succeeded_ they didn't want to get caught on the crossfire.

So now he was trapped like a mouse and surrounded by people he didn't know or trusted. Worse, they had an advantage over him in that most of them were established Italian mafiosi. Hence, they would be more willing to cooperate between them to get out of whatever the trap was, leaving him and the almost-civilians to fend for themselves.

If they didn't suspect him of being the one behind all of this in the first place, as the only "outlier".

He was in a better position than Skull -poor bastard had apparentely had his introduction to the _concept_ of Flames via Checkerface and he hadn't even had the decency of informing him of the tiny detail called _mafia_ \- but that was not really saying much.

Fon was pretty sure even _Verde_ had backup somewhere around, if only due to their geographic location. A scientist as valued as him had to have someone who owed him something in the zone, considering how close to his usual haunts they were.

He suppossed he could make an effort to get credit and goodwill out of them by being a good teammate on whatever their "jobs" were, but that was just as likely to help as to backfire. He doubted even the until-very-recently-civilian Skull would lower his guard just because he was _nice_. Coming in a disguise and with a cover story (no matter how horribly defended, it wasn't really the kid's fault if he was a bad actor) was a clear indication that he was not a moron.

He didn't have a better plan, though. And that irked him, because he had been expecting an ambush that would be over with a quick fight, not some kind of demented social experiment with highly dangerous and suspicious people living together for an indeterminate amount of time.

Highly dangerous and suspicious people that were suppossed to _work together_.

Fon exhaled another deep breath and started meditating. He abhorred lowering his guard so much in this kind of situation, but he had booby-trapped his door and window and he _really_ needed to calm down.

* * *

Verde was in a really strange place, emotionally speaking. He was currently trapped between elated and in a state of suspicious paranoia.

He couldn't really help it because _so many strong Flames to study!_

But also _so many dangerous people a hairsbreadth from violence out of sheer suspicion_.

Not to mention whatever the trap itself was.

He had deliberately downplayed his abilities as a fighter for _years_ , partly to make other people underestimate him and partly because using the morons trying to coerce him to work for them as "test runs" for his creations was just logical and efficient.

When Checkerface approached him, he had thought this would be a similar situation. Go there, push people's buttons by amping up the "mad scientist" vibes to get a feel for their character -well, honestly, and to have a little fun- and destroy their "trap" with his creations. If they proved insufficient he could fall back to fighting and worst case scenario... he was a Lightning. Good luck penetrating his defense or outlasting him.

But his "companions" complicated things. Most of them were established and powerful, probably here from a mix of suspicion -ignoring someone trying to lay a trap for you and leaving him the opportunity to try again but _subtly_ was just stupid- and slight overconfidence.

Which meant that the trap would be made with the containment of truly dangerous people in mind, and he couldn't count on his enemies underestimating the resources they would need to restrain him.

He also didn't know which of them -if any- was in on whatever the ambush was suppossed to be. Sure, the Giglio Nero Donna seemed to have more information than them, but she was a _Sky_. It would make sense that the details were sent to her. And if she was as suspicious as the rest of them she would withold all the information she could to see who slipped up and said something they weren't suppossed to know.

The rest of them -himself included- were playing a similar game of misinformation and scrutiny of each other.

Which would normally be a completely fascinating social experiment _if he wasn't in the thick of it_.

But the most irksome thing was that _he couldn't obtain data_. Not only had he no leads as to Checkerface's identity - _blasphemy!_ \- but the rest of them were annoyingly competent. The only thing his bugs had been able to tell him was that they were either sitting or pacing on their rooms, all of them slightly agitated and trying to calm down.

Even the arguably-civilian Cloud that could not act to save his life knew better than to try to contact the outside in a place that was not secure. Which was heartening when considering potential allies against whatever Checkerface was planning but _really annoying_ when trying to get their mettle.

Especially because Checkerface was either a true chess master that knew their real abilities no matter how much they tried to hide them -the only thing they all had in common was ridiculously powerful Flames- or a complete lunatic that had no idea how incredibly incompatible and on edge most of them were.

This whole situation was a powderkeg about to explode, and Verde was torn between gleefully anticipating the destruction and diving for cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, forgot to mention: this story is also complete on FFnet for those who prefer that platform


	4. Viper and family

"What?! They abandoned the ones who got captured?!"

Skull gave the public bathroom he had sequestered himself in another suspicious sweep before turning his attention back to Ron's face in the magic mirror. Painful reminder or not, it was the most secure method of communication they had. And he needed to give his friends an update on the latest fiasco he found himself in, especially considering the kind of "comrades" he had been saddled with.

"Yeah. I mean, they are all very strong and clearly didn't need the help in the end, but they were just so... apathetic. Really, I don't know what this is suppossed to be, but if it requieres us to work together it isn't going to work. Not one of them moved a finger to help. Even the ones that had just come back from being captured looked like they couldn't care less!"

"Wait, how many of them were captured?"

"Almost everyone! Except for Lal and Luce the other ones all got captured or went off on their own and had their communications blocked for a while. What does Checkerface even expect from making these people into a team? They clearly couldn't care less about one another!"

Skull had been too far gone on his ranting to register that Hermione's question had not been delibered with the indignation of Ron's exclamation, but he did have the presence of mind to puzzle over her deadpan look when she continued her questioning.

"And how did you manage to get away from them to contact us again?"

"I let some of the thugs we were fighting drag me out of sight and...  pretended to be... captured."

Skull could practically _feel_ Hermione's judgemental stare on him and Ron even across the mirror. He had to wonder if his blush clashed as horribly with his new hair colour as it did Ron's.

At least now he knew why Reborn had looked at him so incredulously when he had finally cracked and asked if they shouldn't help the others.

* * *

"I see you didn't need help in the end, Lackey"

Skull gave Reborn what he knew would be a very ineffective scowl, since he was still flushed in embarrassment, but he had to try. If only because the arse persisted with the annoying nickname.

(He'd never admit that the first time he heard it he had almost instantaneously felt an enormoush weight lift off his shoulders. Here nobody expected him to lead and it was honestly startling just how _liberating_ that was.)

But his revelation that he was not the only one keeping secrets did give him things to ponder. He had wondered what the deal was with Lal pretending to be unaware of the blond following them (who had called himself Colonello, and Skull had struggled to keep the incredulous expression off his face at that), since he had known that they had arrived together.

Now, of course, he realized that his attempt at "wooing" her had simply been an excuse to get close so she could slip him information about what they had been up to.

Sure, he had been peripherally aware that there was _no way_ that Reborn, Viper and Verde were real names, but it hadn't exactly clicked until that moment that _these people were competent_.

Skull felt... conflicted, about that. That only made them even more dangerous, obviously. Some or all of them were most probably in on whatever Checkerface's plan was, and the reminder that they were considered the Strongest in their respective fields only exacerbated the sense of danger he was in.

But. But they didn't need him. Sure, Checkerface probably did for... whatever it was he had reunited them for. But these people could look after themselves. They didn't need him to be a leader, or a saviour. Merlin, by their standards he barely qualified for _lackey_.

That thought probably shouldn't make him so happy.

(Also, he was _so_ glad he had gotten Oodako. The lesson about not everything being as it seems had finally sunk in! He hadn't charged straight in to the "rescue" and horribly embarrassed himself! Hermione would be so proud.)

Looking at them now, in fact, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one holding things back. The way they acted, the things they said and _didn't_ say, the way they fought...

All of them were being very restrained. In fact, they were doing much the same as Skull himself. They portrayed strong personalities (or at least personalities with very strong, defining characteristics that now Skull would bet didn't define them at all) and talked about the here and now, but none of them volunteered personal information.

Even their fighting styles looked painfully simple at first glance. Reborn and Lal shooted things, Fon fought hand to hand, Viper used illusions and Verde sent his robots to do the work for him. There was _no way_ the World's Strongest were a group of one-trick ponies. Luce was exempt from fighting due to her pregnancy, but Skull was starting to suspect that she was still able to fight if the need arose.

Skull himself was using only the running and hiding skills he had refined from years of "Harry Hunting", though at least he had the valid excuse of not knowing how to use his Flames yet. Which, come to think of it, probably made him look like a slacker. Lal wasn't trained on combat use of her Flames either, but she was using a gun.

His problem was that he didn't know how to use any weapon other than his wand, and that was out because of the Statute of Secrecy. But, just as he was aware that if they were the World's Strongest there must be a reason, the others were probably wondering what he was hiding. And why he was not contributing to the team effort, since all of them could do that without revealing too much.

Didn't it figure. He was in exactly the same situation as everyone around him and he still managed to make a terrible first impression because of circumstances beyond his control.

* * *

The following weeks weren't much better. Skull had entered the "surreptitiously try to sound out their teammates" game a little late, and it showed.

The only things he had been able to glean off their reactions were incredulity that it took him this long to wise up and relief that he was leaving the most annoying aspects of his persona for the missions. Which didn't mean that he was acting like himself, of course. He wasn't going to give out all of his secrets just because they knew he was pretending.

His companions seemed to understand the feeling, because nobody called him on it, though the odd grateful glance he caught when he failed to overreact to something as he had been doing almost made him roll his eyes. He hadn't been _that_ annoying.

Helping out more on their missions was not as easy it looked, either. As the one with the "professional career" on driving -and Viper's judgemental stare had made him flush horribly, but it wasn't his fault he had only had three months to construct his cover story, dammit- he had been the designated escape driver at first.

It hadn't lasted. After the first few times there was always someone "coincidentally" on the driver seat before he could get there. Obviously they didn't trust him with their getaway and while he could understand the feeling, it still rankled. He shut up and bore it, though. He wasn't so desperate that he'd spill his secrets for a little trust.

(Unbeknownst to Skull, the rest of the Strongest didn't fear his driving out of a lack of faith on him. It was more that, as Harry, he had been used to sharp turns and high speeds on a broom, always moving with "up" and "down" as valid options when changing directions. His career as a stuntman, brief as it had been, had been successful because he had not changed the way he moved, simply compensated for the differences between bike and broom, which seemed impressive and dangerous to his public. His getaway driving was, as a result, very effective. But also something nobody wanted to experience unless there was no other option)

He was stuck, because his only other usable talent (that wouldn't land him on Azkaban for breaching the Statute) was predicting when things were going to go to hell. And that only made the others more suspicious of him.

The pattern was so reminiscent of his Hogwarts days he almost wanted to laugh. Or cry. Probably cry.

He started by making a wild guess as to what was going to go wrong. Inevitably, he was ignored. Just as inevitably, he ended up being wrong. And when he finally caught what it was that was bothering him about the situation and structured it into a workable theory, he ended up being right. And at that point it typically didn't matter if they believed him or not, because it was already too late.

Being in a group with highly competent individuals was a great experience in that no matter how crazy the plan or difficult the odds, everyone was able to pull through. It was also unnerving when they thought he could be the one that got them in the messes in the first place.

Granted, telling Reborn "I just have terrible luck" when he asked what made him suspect that their missions weren't what they appeared wasn't the most convincing argument ever. But there was just no way to properly explain Potter Luck to someone who was unaware of the clusterfuck Britain's Second Blood War had been.

Fortunately for him, Reborn was apparentely famous for his ability to read body language and being impossible to lie to as well as for being the World's Greatest Hitman.

Which left the whole group torn between believing that he was being honest, or that he was the World's Greatest Actor.

Skull was sure the others would be convinced that he was Checkerface's agent if it wasn't because he usually was the one in the middle of whatever the mess was.

On the bright side, he finally learned to use his Flames to heal himself. Seeing the purple fire knit his skin together was a bit nauseating in a this-should-be-hurting-me way, but undeniably cool as well.

(And a bit infuriating too. Couldn't he have learned to do this years before and saved himself a ton of trips to the Hospital Wing?)

* * *

The deciding factor that made them finally accept that Skull maybe was just _that_ much of a pessimist didn't come until they were asked to investigate who had tricked the heirs of two rival Famiglias into marrying when they each thought the other was a civilian.

They had been about to tell the Dons that it had been one of the bride's closest friends (since she had been the one to hire the priest) when Skull had told them his theory. The rest of the group had looked at him as if he was crazy when he told them, but both bride and groom had been within earshot and confirmed it.

Apparentely, they both had met completely by chance and assumed that the other was a civilian, then discreetely investigated and discovered the other's identity. They had immediately suspected the other of foul play and continued to "date", expecting a backstab at any second, then... played a game of chicken with the wedding to see when the other would give up the act, both secretely planning to hire an actor to act as the priest.

Both had forgotten, and since neither had told their friends about their suspicions, had ended up married for real.

Skull would be empathetic to his companions' looks of disbelief, but really, this kind of thing wasn't anywhere close to the craziest thing he had heard about -or even had happen to him.

Though he did resent their looks of disbelief when he called the situation romantic. The heirs _had_ decided that they wanted to keep their marriage valid. They had no ground to accuse him of not knowing how normal people acted.

He had finally escaped their suspicion with that one when it became clear that not even the two who caused the situation had been aware of everything that happened, so that was a relief at least.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell us your octopus could become so big?! I thought we would drown for sure!"

"... I didn't know Oodako could do that either."

Skull couldn't really blame Lal for her stricken look. He was pretty sure he didn't look much better. Still, if they had been dumped on the sea because the whole floor they had been standing in was a trapdoor...

"Don't you think this is bigger than we first thought? If they have been at the smuggling business long enough to change their entire reception floor into a trapdoor as a contingency..."

_Click._

"Don't. Jinx us. _Lackey._ "

Skull huffed but shut up. Reborn seemed to have come up with the ridiculous notion that their missions went FUBAR more often than not because he invited the bad luck with his theories, but that was absurd.

(He ignored the tiny voice in his head that pointed out that Reborn might be inadvertenly right if the cause was Potter Luck)

Then his eyes landed on an equally grumpy Viper and all thoughts of luck and theories about their latest mission disappeared from his mind.

* * *

Silver eyes.

There was no mistaking it. He couldn't even tell himself that he had imagined it in the split second she took off her hood to drain the water on it, because he had even used his Pensieve to replay the moment.

(In his room after setting alarms on the door and window and he used the Pensieve while _inside_ of his trunk, because he wasn't taking chances with this kind of information.)

He knew of only one family in which silver eyes were a common trait.

* * *

Skull spent a fair few days dithering, because this was an entirely new complication and he could be working himself up over nothing if that kind of coloring was common among Flame users.

In the end, though, he bit the bullet.

(When did he ever do anything else?)

* * *

"A Black?! Are you sure?"

"No. Which is why I need you to see if there is someone she could match among the people that were blasted off the Black Tapestry over the years."

Skull was really grateful that everyone took it as a given that all of them would go on their own at some point during their missions, because he was too worked up to think about a good excuse, or even sweep the place for bugs as thoroughly as usual.

"And what will you do if there is?"

Skull sighed at Andromeda's worried look. What indeed.

* * *

A week later Andromeda's investigation revealed a presumed-dead daughter of Marius Black, who had been a squib himself. Apparentely she had been initially recognized by the family because it was thought that she had magic, then was kicked out when the Sorting revealed that she was just as much of a squib as her father.

Skull had winced at the story, because she was just three years older than him, which meant that Sirius had been in Azkaban and Andromeda disgraced in the eyes of the family for all the period between the Blacks suspecting she had magic and her being cast out. So she hadn't had any help once her father died at the beginning of the war.

Skull could see how that series of events would have pushed her to the world of the mafia, especially because Mist Flames could very easily be mistaken for magic.

(And he was doing his best not to wonder what had caused her Flames to manifest so early in her life.)

In the end he asked Andromeda to reinstate her as a member of the House of Black. Possible enemies or not, nobody deserved to have their memory erased from the records of their family. And if he was wrong and Viper wasn't a Black, a squib who was wronged by the family would receive the stipend that corresponded to single members of the family that didn't have parents. That was a win-win situation in his book.

* * *

Viper had learned when she was very young what the truly important things were in the world.

She had been subjected to her extended family's attempts to "scare magic into her" despite her father's protests, and that had been when her Flames manifested.

(Later, when she was older and jaded and used to the ugliness of the Underworld, she would revisit those memories and wonder if her father and her were the only squibs of the Black line because all the other children had magic or if it was because their attempts to "discover if the children had magic" were in fact just straight up killing the squibs and her father and her were the only ones who _survived._ )

That had been the start of her education as a Black Lady. And as a Black Lady she learned that power was the most important thing in the world. Power was to be seeked, harnessed and used in an effort to better and protect the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

That way she had learned how to obtain information from gossip, how to use it like the weapon it could be and how to use it to get safety and money.

She had been a child then, content to soak up her lessons and prove that _yes, her father was an asset._ That he had contributed something valuable -her- to the family and that no matter what Aunt Walburga and Cousin Narcissa said, he was not a disgrace.

She had been happy to learn and grow, becoming good enough at her "magic" that she could control her "accidental" illussions and even _feel_ the tiny pinprick of magic that was her conexion to the Family Tree.

(It wouldn't be until much, much later that she would discover that the only reason she could feel it was because that was only piece of magic that had ever touched her.)

Her happy days had ended the moment that damned Hat shouted "SQUIB!" for the entire Wizarding World to hear. She had been humiliated and cast aside, and her kind, kind father had let her go overseas to study in an effort to give her a clean start.

(Years later she would wonder if he was worried the family would try to erase their shame in a permanent manner if she continued living in London.)

Viper was a Black, though. She had been educated as one and nobody could ever claim that the lessons hadn't made an impact.

So she had cast aside everything she had learned in a fit of anger and wounded pride. She had been bitter, and oh so very resentful. Because she had her Flames, so how could that stupid Hat call her squib?

For years she had ignored her lessons on information gathering, on being aware of everything and everyone that could hurt her family and concentrated on trying to prove that she could be a witch if she just trained her Flames that bit more.

And then her father had died.

An accident, they said. Strange circumstances, to be sure, but no feasible way for it to have been a murder.

When she went to the Wizarding World in search for answers, she found an entire society of people burying their heads on the sand and a war on the brink of going from covert hits to open attacks.

Viper had sworn then to never again be as unaware of the goings on around her. She had started by obscuring her identity as much as possible.

( _Never volunteer information about yourself, you stupid girl!_ )

Then she started amassing information, buying and selling it the way she had been taught how to do so long ago.

Before she knew it she was waist deep on an entirely new society, discovered what her pretty indigo magic actually _was_ and she was well on her way to being not only a good Information Broker but _the Best_.

(Her reputation as a miser had been an accident. She had charged with the prices she had learned in mind, forgetting for a moment that she was not dealing with Pureblood society anymore.)

But, even satisfied with her current life as she was, she couldn't help prodding at where her broken connection with the Blacks used to be from time to time.

Which is why she instantly felt it when it _snapped_ back into place.


	5. Verde and curses

_What._

_How?_

_It'satrapit'satrapit'satrapIT'SNOTREAL_

**_BREATHE!_ **

Viper took a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled. Then another.

Vaguely, she realized she was shaking and instinctively assessed her surroundings. She was on her room, nobody could enter or monitor her - _except for a powerful Mist likeCheckerface **thiswashisdoing**_ \- without her knowledge.

She took another couple of deep breaths. This was not an ideal location for her to have a breakdown. She had some measure of privacy, but she still needed to pull herself together quickly.

Viper gave herself another couple of minutes to just _breathe_ before forcibly halting her shaking. Slowly, hesitantly, she extended her senses to where she _thought_ that...

There it was. Viper resolutely ignored the itching of her eyes and simply took another deep breath. It was the unmistakable feeling of magic, of her _connection_.

She forcibly halted that train of thought. This was obviously a trick. She had accepted her position among  _Il Prescelti Sette_ despite knowing the pretentitious title was just the lure for a trap. She _knew_ they were probably going to be tricked somehow, or backstabbed, or ambushed.

Either Checkerface had magic as well as Flames or one of his associates did. He obviously knew about her past and that was _very bad news_. She needed to concentrate on the threat he represented, not worry about an obviously fake connection.

(She ruthlessly supressed the part of her that _yearned_ to be a Black again, no matter how much she **hated** _loved **hated**_ them.)

Viper gritted her teeth. She _refused_ to scream her frustration. Emotional manipulation was one of the most effective methods to put enemies off balance. She knew this and had used it to her advantage countless times before. She needed to pull herself together _now_ before the rest of the trap sprung. She needed to think clearly and forget about that **_sham_**.

Viper blinked at the sudden idea that hit her. She wouldn't be able to regain her cool until her stupid hope was squashed. And there was a very easy way to check that she was still the same nameless Information Broker as that morning.

A little less off balance, Viper took out her notebook. It was an enchanted piece that had cost her three jobs to afford, but it was an extremely useful tool to know when someone lied about their payments, because it allowed her to check her bank account whenever she wanted.

She would just have to check and...

**Impossible.**

Her money was in Gringotts. Entering one of France's Magical Alleys using her Mist Flames to substitute for magic had been difficult but doable, and the goblins didn't care about who they served. They had several Muggle-seeming branches just for that purpose. They were shrewd and bloodthirsty creatures, which was why Viper had wanted them to guard her money.

Not even Checkerface would have been able to trick them.

But her notebook showed ten thousand, two hundred and thirty two more galleons on her account than there should be.

Even frozen in shock as she was, Viper could feel herself doing the calculations on autopilot. That amount was _exactly_ the monthly stipend single members of the House of Black received when they had no parents, multiplied by the time it had been since her father's death and even taking into account inflation.

That was something else Checkerface shouldn't have been able to know. The Blacks guarded their secrets jealously, especially when it came to money.

Curiously, she wasn't shaking or hyperventilating anymore. She was completely frozen, which was a much more dignified way of expressing shock.

(A little hysterically, Viper thought that Great Aunt Cassiopeia would have approved of her poker face.)

Checkerface had seemed immensely powerful and knowledgeable, but there was just no way for him to know so much about the Blacks.

And even if he somehow did, that was a huge amount of money to spend just for the sake of putting her off balance.

(Could it be? Did she have a family again? Did they want her back?)

Viper let out a shuddering breath. No. She wouldn't do that to herself.

She needed to think rationally. The only way she could have been reinstated was if the Head or someone in his name put her back on the Family Tree. And the current Head of the House of Black was...

_Oh._

* * *

Skull took careful stock of his surroundings before leaving the dark alley he had concealed himself in to give his friends his usual report.

He then promptly came nose to nose with Viper.

"James."

His first impulse was confusion, but the serious as grave expression on Viper's face -well, the little that was visible, anyway- clued him in soon enough.

She knew. Viper was really the Black squib that had been blasted off the Tapestry.

And she was using his second name in case someone heard them. Skull couldn't help smiling slightly and responding in kind.

"Lucretia."

Her flinch caught him by surprise, but he caught on soon enough and directed her a deadpan expression. Of course, using his second name also carried the subtle implication that she knew more about him than the general public, and was therefore dangerous.

(He was blaming Reborn for his ridiculous awarness of people's body language and its implications. Sure, he was grateful for the lessons, even if he had only started "tortu-training" him because he had taken to calling him senpai sarcastically. But useful or not, the ability to know when people were out to get him was just _depressing._ )

Skull had to blink at Viper's hesitant body language. A year -or, to be brutally honest, even two months- ago he wouldn't have noticed, but she was unsure of herself.

And how come she had been surprised to hear he knew her full name anyway? Surely she knew he was the Head and, consequently, the one who reinstated her, right?

"What do you want?"

Skull blinked "Shouldn't I be the one asking that?"

Her gritted teeth clearly told him that that was not the correct answer "For reinstating me. What do you want? Are you going to blast me off again if I don't do what you tell me to?"

"No! You are back for good, Lu... err, Viper. I just saw your eyes and connected the dots." Skull almost flinched back at her raised hackles "But that only got me investigating possible Blacks that were still alive, just blasted off the Tapestry! I wasn't even sure it was you I was reinstating. I just saw a squib wronged by the family and wanted to make things better."

"That's _it_?"

Skull almost felt offended at her disbelieving expression. "What other reason would I need?"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that this was a _coincidence_? Next you'll tell me that you're wearing that bike suit as a fashion statement."

"I agree that this whole 'Strongest Seven' thing is suspicious, but I really don't know anything about it. Checkerface might have known we're related, but I didn't." Skull did his best to mantain his body language calm, because Viper seemed very shaken. "Look, next time we can go to London and you'll see the investigation I had to do just to be sure there actually _was_ a Black blasted off the Tapestry."

Viper seemed, if anything, more suspicious. "And why not now? We still have two hours."

Skull felt a little sheepish. That was a contingency he hadn't thought about. "I don't have a portkey."

At least Viper's judgemental stare probably meant that she was more or less composed now. Then, without warning, she grabbed his arm with a muttered "Don't underestimate Mist Flames" and they were off.

* * *

Teddy loved his "Auntie Lulu".

Viper tried to pretend she didn't reciprocate.

(Skull called her Lulu _once_. She made very clear her views on the matter)

It was a trying visit for all parties involved, save maybe Teddy. Viper and Andromeda seemed to be reminiscing about the Blacks, and while Skull didn't pry, he got the impression that their family had left some _very_ bittersweet memories for the both of them.

Skull himself was very twitchy about it all, because he still didn't completely trust Viper and was not happy about her knowing so much about him and those he considered family.

(Being told that she immediately connected "Harry Potter" to "Skull de Mort" when she realized he had to be involved had left him somewhere between offended and resigned. Especially because she admitted that what had clued her in had been his horrible luck and inability to fight despite having obviously been in life-or-death situations before)

His idea to give her the Big Black Book of Blackmail had been the most emotionally trying experience of the day, though.

He had simply thought that Viper was more than qualified to make use of it, and that neither Andromeda nor himself had interest in blackmailing anyone. He had been unaware of the Oaths -binding Magical Oaths that would slowly and painfully kill the Oath-breaker, because the Blacks were _bloody terrifying_ \- that whoever held the Book had to swear.

Skull had almost retracted the offer on the spot, but Viper apparentely _really wanted_ the position. And not just because of the professional opportunities (since the Blacks had had fingers on lots of pies, and that included contacts in the Underworld), but because she'd been groomed for the spot when she was thought to have magic.

Skull had carefully hidden his expression of sympathy, even though he was pretty sure she caught it anyway.

In order to make things a bit easier on her, since he still didn't know where her loyalties laid in regards to the Checkerface mess, he had made her swear loyalty and protection to his heir instead of himself. It was also a bit of an apology for the incredibly trying and emotionally exahusting way he had chosen to bring her back into the family.

Only after Viper -who had looked at him as if he was a moron for letting go the opportunity to have someone in his corner for sure- gave the Oaths did they introduce her to Teddy.

* * *

Perhaps inevitably, they were late to meet back with the others. They were both tight-lipped about what  happened, until Reborn asked if they "couldn't have waited until they were back at base" and if they should "leave them privacy from now on".

Skull was just as surprised as the rest of them when Viper cursed, said "I knew we forgot something!" and made them both travel through her Mist for the second time that day.

* * *

When they came back (again) Skull had a new appreciation for the Black family's ruthlessness. He was in no mood to entertain their companions' prodding for information, which was clearly what they intended judging by how they had all ended up sitting around the living room table. Viper seemed unruffled, so he let her be the one to fend their questions with a half-hearted expression of commiseration and pillowed his head on his arms.

"Mou. It will cost you." Of course that was the first thing she'd say.

"I'll pay!" Luce chirped "Come on. Details! What happened between the two of you?"

Skull actually felt alarmed at that. Viper was famous because she _always_ gave good information when paid.

"We discovered that Skull is my closest living relative."

Luce seemed to deflate a bit, then almost instantly was excited again. "Really?! What's your relation?"

"We are second cousins once removed."

Well, that killed the conversation dead. Skull hid his grin behind his forearms. He really shouldn't have doubted her.

"Oh? And what happened to the rest of the family?" Wow, Reborn was even more insensitive than he had originally thought. Skull was somewhat impressed.

"Are you going to pay?"

"Of course." Reborn's grin was even darker than usual. Skull sighed. Bloody paranoid mafiosos.

"They killed each other. In fact, you could say that Skull and I survived in large part thanks to the fact that we weren't officially part of the family until very recently."

"What?" Fon looked horrified. Huh, Skull would have pegged the internal structure of the Triads as somewhat similar to the Black family's.

At Viper's raised eyebrow Fon seemed to hesitate, but Reborn didn't miss a beat. "Elaborate. Please."

Viper huffed. "Our family was full of crazies. Internal disputes getting bloody was just par for the course for us. Skull was from a somewhat distant branch, so he didn't really get the full brunt of it, but I did until I failed an important test they gave us when we reached eleven and was kicked out. That's how we managed not to get too involved in the internal fighting when one big disagreement ended with almost the whole family dead."

"And you aren't worried about what remains of the "crazies" trying to take advantage of the both of you now that you are part of  _Il Prescelti Sette_?" If Skull didn't know better, he'd almost say that Reborn was worried about them.

"Let me rephrase my previous statement. One big disagreement ended with the whole family dead. Nowadays you can count the members of the family on a single hand with fingers left over, and we only took the surname back for inheritance purposes."

Reborn actually winced at that one, but he still pressed on. "You said before that you forgot something. Should we expect you two to continue disappearing for family business?"

"Our family was primarly comprised of Mists. They also had very stringent ideas about who was an acceptable addition to the family, as well as a near-obsession with continuing the family line. I wanted to be sure they hadn't left any surprises to "encourage" cousins to produce children in the eventuality of the family being near extinction."

Reborn finally relaxed, back to being cocky and a little condescending. "I doubt the "crazies" you described would be able to pull something like that off."

Skull couldn't help his snort at that. "Yeah, it's the sane ones you have to watch out for. _Dearest_ Great-Great-Grandpa actually was Headmaster at a school. He also left us this lovely booby-trapped heirloom."

And the horrified faces were back. He probably shouldn't be finding so much enjoyment out of their shock.

Viper was the one who snorted this time. "Just be grateful I managed to counteract it. Your defenses against that kind of thing are pathetic."

Skull directed a half-hearted glare at her. "You know I'm terrible at that kind of thing. I didn't get tutoring like you."

And if they were talking about Occlumency and not internal Flame manipulation, well, the others hadn't asked. And Viper actually _was_ using her Mist Flames to substitute for the magic normally required for Occlumency, so they weren't even being purposefully misleading or anything.

"I know, but I'd really rather not end up like Auntie Dearest. She married a first cousin, and we had first row seats to the disaster that ended up being. Civilized people don't inbreed anymore for a _reason_."

"Orion was a perfectly nice man!" And it really said something about these people's influence on him that he was using his second name on pure instinct even while offended in his godfather's behalf. At least this reduced the probabilities of the others discovering just _what_ family they were talking about from a slip up on his part.

"He also had six toes."

Skull grumbled half-heartedly. He had known he wasn't going to win that one.

"Actually..." Viper seemed to blink, as if just coming to a realization. Then she let her head hit the table without any warning.

Skull was about to ask her if she was okay when Viper lifted her head, directed him a deadpan stare almost _scorching_  in its irritation and shifted her attention to the gathered mafiosos again.

"Right. Other thing you all should know is that Skull really has _terrible_ luck. He was kind of infamous for it. I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of our relatives had a hand on it, actually. So we should probably be careful. He's sort of a bad luck magnet."

Skull opened his mouth to protest, then slowly closed it. It was a valid point, now that he thought about it. With any luck, since all of the Black Death Eater sympathizers were dead whatever curse he had been hit with would lose potency or recede completely.

He wasn't going to hold his breath, though.

* * *

It wasn't too long after that heavily-censored explanation that Skull caught Luce putting up Halloween decorations. She insisted that they should celebrate, while the rest seemed to range between apathetic and annoyed.

For his part, Skull felt the blood drain from his face.

He tried to tell himself that it was a stupid worry. Almost all of the horrible things that had happened during Halloween all those years had their origin on Voldemort, and he was dead for good now.

Somehow, he couldn't help the churning of his stomach. Some cynical part of him wondered if this was the day the trap sprung.

Viper took one look at his face, cursed and promptly had all of them nursing drinks in the kitchen while she gave them a lecture on this day being "Ground Zero of bad luck" and "Don't let Skull alone, or so help me. You guys really have no idea the kind of messes that happened on past Halloweens".

Their initial reactions had been scoffs and disinterest, but Skull could see the paranoid nature of people raised in the Mafia rearing its head as the day wore on.

(Moody would probably have approved, and for the life of him Skull couldn't work out if that was a good thing or a bad thing)

They started simply by checking on him from time to time (well, "coincidentally passing in front of his _conveniently_   _open_ -damn you, Viper- door"), then closing doors and windows, and by the time night came the whole house had become a bunker.

(Who would have thought that _Verde_ of all people was the protective tinker-with-security-measures-when-worried kind?)

By the time midnight rolled around Skull was feeling really embarrassed at the huge deal they had made out of something that had ended up being nothing. Seriously, they were ready for troll and the most threatening thing that had happened was that Fon coughed.

And Viper. And Lal. Then Verde, Reborn, Skull himself, Luce...

They ended up with a very _nasty_ case of the flu that left them bedridden all the next morning and didn't abate until two weeks later.

Skull would have chalked it up to a weird coincidence if it wasn't for Verde's outraged exclamations. Apparentely the scientist had made sure to mantain their base sterile and to monitor their health -and _wow_ was it embarrassing that Skull had never realized- and none of them had carried virus the day before.

(He was probably the one who had the worst time. His enraged "This doesn't make sense! I refuse to be sick for no reason!" had irritated his throat and given him a bad case of aphonia)

A very serious Reborn had insisted on performing an exorcism on him when they finally recovered, and Skull hadn't been able to say no. Some part of him had hoped it actually worked, though he was aware that the possibilities were minimal.

* * *

Curiously, despite his apprehension whenever Halloween arrived, Skull always seemed to forget about the other date when his bad luck became rabid. Maybe he subconsciously found things coming to a head at the end of the school year logical, so he never bothered to make the correlation between that date and worse luck than Halloween.

Whatever the reason, when Luce informed them one June morning that they were going to look for a treasure on top of a hill, he was as caught off guard as the rest of the Arcobaleno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your reference, at the end of this chapter Skull is 19 (almost 20), Viper is 22 and Teddy is 3.


	6. Luce and forgiveness

Well. It wasn't that bad.

Getting turned into toddlers was probably not as bad as other possibilities. There certainly were worse curses in the world.

Skull looked at the rest of the newly dubbed "Arcobaleno". They seemed to be in various states of shock.

Uh, Colonello had taken Lal's place. How gallant of him. Pity she had suffered the effects of the Curse anyway. Though he was pretty sure the horror on her face had nothing to do with the state of her body or Flames.

Viper's gaze was still locked on her hands. It had been more than a quarter of an hour already. He might have to do something about that if she didn't snap out of it on her own.

Luce was still serenely contrite. Her expression was really a study on emotions. Apologetic, slightly guilty... Not a hint of remorse though. But that made sense considering her gift.

Skull averted his eyes before Luce could attempt to make eye contact. Working together for so many months meant that they knew each other fairly well, and some things they would have preferred kept secret had ended up being known to the group at large. That included Luce's foresight.

There was no need for words, anyway. Her expression quite clearly spelled out that she _had_ known. Asking for her reasons didn't even enter his mind.

(With an effort, he wrenched his mind away from thoughts of Trelawney and Dumbledore. There was ALWAYS a reason. That didn't mean he wanted to know what it was)

A frustrated, half-choked cry broke the silence of the clearing. Uh, he hadn't thought Reborn would be the first to succumb to rage. Skull eyed his rapid-fire shooting dispassionately. It wasn't like there was anything he could say to him. Letting him get it out of his system was probably for the best.

Smoke from somewhere to his right signalled Fon losing his calm as well, though he was being quieter about it. Skull idly wished he'd be able to reign his Flames back in before he destroyed the hill.

Verde was also channeling his rage, though in a productive way. With any luck he wouldn't burn out from the feverish-like intensity of the examination of his pacifier.

(Skull silently wished none of them became obsessed. He might not have been the most dedicated student at Hogwarts, but he could recognize something _powerful_ )

He was probably the one in the best position, all in all. He had suffered much worse and was used to weird shite happening to him for little to no reason. This was just business as usual.

He was fine.

Skull was the first to leave the clearing, but stopped when he reached his bike. Of course, he couldn't drive anymore. His tiny arms couldn't even reach the seat, never mind the handles.

Skull choked back a scream.

He was fine.

He was used to this kind of thing.

* * *

His friends weren't impressed with the Curse or his definition of "fine". He would have protested, but after finally blowing up from one too many lectures on "confronting his feelings" he _did_ feel better, so he gave them a slightly sheepish apology and asked for help.

The support he received was kind of staggering.

Before he knew it he was surrounded by Weasleys, either trying to cheer him up, joking with him or offering theories.

(Meeting with Ginny again was much less awkward than he had expected. She just smiled, shook her head and teasingly told him that next time he should bring a girl she could embarrass him in front of, not more previously-thought-of-as-impossible feats of magic)

Hermione, meanwhile, spent hours upon hours buried among books, which would have made him feel incredibly guilty if she hadn't been so enthusiastic about finding out everything she could about a curse that permanently transfigured their bodies while at the same time _harvesting_ their Flames. She was buzzing so much with the possibilities of the Curse using their Flames as a source of energy (and what that energy was being spent on, because it definetely wasn't on mantaining their toddler bodies, though how Hermione reached that conclusion was very much above him) that he almost feared she'd bring him with her to the Department of Mysteries for experimentation if she got any more carried away.

Andromeda, for her part, stared at him in that guilt-inducing way of mothers everywhere until he caved and went to fetch Viper.

(Harry would insist for decades to come that she had been coaching Teddy to help her before confronting him, because his demand for "Auntie Lulu" had come with truly suspicious timing)

And it was a good thing she did, too. Viper was still numb with shock two weeks after the Curse. She didn't say anything to him and let herself be dragged to Wizarding Britain via portkey. He was just wondering what to say to snap her out of it when she saw Teddy. She then proceeded to cuddle the toddler for a good three hours before tentatively asking if he had found anything about the Curse in the family library.

Harry and Andromeda had then given perfectly simultaneous face-palms. If there was one place that might have any information on what felt like a very ancient, _very_ powerful curse, it was the Black library.

It really said something about their state of mind that not even Hermione had thought about that.

* * *

Almost all of the possible solutions in the Black library involved Dark magic, dangerous rituals or the death of the cursed people.

(Because, apparentely, if you cursed a Black they weren't above sacrificing said person to get you back tenfold)

It was a start, though, and Hermione and Bill seemed confident that they could use some of the underlying principles of the rituals to find a solution that was a little less extreme.

It was also clear that it would be a _slow_ process. They were basically trying to create a new ritual almost from scratch in order to break a Curse they didn't completely understand, after all.

Harry sighed and shook his head when he heard Hermione's suggestion that he go back to being Skull in order to see what the Mafia knew about this particular Curse.

Sure, it was a very valid strategy, but they both knew that she was mostly saying it so he would get his mind off things, since he had had _fun_ exploring that new world, as much as he would sometimes insist otherwise.

(He had the sneaking suspicion that it was also so he could reconnect with his old 'teammates', which was a matter he was not prepared to address yet, so he was keeping firmly off his thoughts)

The day he decided to ask Viper if she wanted to go with him he found her soldiering through Teddy's first attempt at a strawberry milkshake (which was basically a bunch of strawberries smushed together inside a tall glass), so he had had to fake a coughing fit so as to not hurt his godson's feelings. Viper's expression told him quite clearly what would happen if that particular scene was ever referenced or alluded to, which had the happy side effect of wiping the amusement from his face.

To his surprise, his cousin agreed to help him try to find information, and her exasperated reaction at his cautious reminder that it would probably take years before they found anything relevant reassured him that she was mostly recovered from the shock of getting caught in a trap she had known was coming.

She insisted on going back their own ways so she could see if her old contacts knew anything while he abused his "useless civilian" reputation to see if someone underestimated him and let something slip.

He gave her worried looks (and may or may not have enlisted the formidable Weasley matriarch on his campaign of fussing) until she threw her arms into the air in exasperation and consented to getting matching Magic Mirrors so they could still be in contact.

* * *

The next few years passed in kind of a blur. He went from one Famiglia to the next, always playing the incompetent civilian (and feeling amazed and surprisingly disappointed when nobody was able to see past the act) and purposefully botching the missions he found disagreeable. Amazingly, nobody ever seemed to connect the dots as to who consistently tipped the Vindice off. Skull had to remind himself at times that the Arcobaleno were the Best for a reason, and the rest of the mafiosos had more in common with general wizards than the DA.

(He refused to aknowledge he missed them)

And then Verde made him a custom bike he could actually ride despite his new size. "Just a prototype", he'd said, "You're my testing dummy".

And suddenly Skull couldn't pretend anymore that Colonello really hunted him down from time to time to be a bully and not out of worry, or that Reborn insisted on getting him contracts with scumbag Famiglias to tie him down and not so he could be protected from forced recruitment while he gathered the evidence to get them all in Vendicare.

Or that he visited Fon just for the tea, or that Lal sent them updates about her job in the CEDEF to complain about her coworkers and not to let them know of her progress (or lack thereof) at finding information about the Curse.

Skull sighed and cursed his saving-people-thing, as well as his irritating tendency to _care_ about people. He comforted himself with the knowledge that they were the Best at what they did, so of course the berks would find a way to worm their way into his heart without him actually realizing.

He called Viper on the Magic Mirror and his cousin sensibly pointed out that blowing the Statute of Secrecy out of the water would get them a date with the Dementors. She was utterly unsympathetic and unamused, and while when they first met he'd have attributed that to her not caring, he knew her well enough at that point to know that she had realized much earlier than him, was on the same boat and had come to terms already with the fact that they couldn't tell the others that they _might_ have a solution in a few years.

Skull understood, of course. But it still hurt.

It hurt to see the tiny changes on Reborn that resulted from the hitman sealing away the memories from his pre-cursed life.

It hurt to see Verde all but welded to his lab, running experiments nonstop on the Curse even while he insisted that it was just "because it was a fascinating study".

It hurt to not hear from Fon for months and months on end as he disappeared in the Triads, only resurfacing from China a handful of times.

It hurt to see Colonello trying to woo Lal, this time for real.

"Go out with me, kora!" _We can still make it work, please don't leave me!_

"Never! Humph. Idiot student." _Work? How? So you can stare at me and feel guilty about my Flame being broken? I'm not doing that to either of us._

* * *

In the end, it was pretty clear that Viper felt the same (and had been working on a way to give them what little they knew without risking a squad of Obliviators knocking on their door), because he was just as surprised as the rest of his fellow Arcobaleno when she sent them a letter with a date and meeting place.

"I've reunited all of you here so I can tell you what I have discovered about the Curse. However, as it's something I discovered thanks to my Family Library, I am not at liberty to speak of it. Technically, I am telling you all behind my Head of House's back"

Skull's hastily choked back bark of laughter didn't go unnoticed, not that he had expected it to in the first place.

Lal was pinching the bridge of her nose even as she seemed to struggle to keep a smirk off her face. "Skull is the Head of your Famiglia, isn't he?"

The smugness oozing off of Viper spoke volumes even as she gave a faux-casual shrug. "He's the only one who was never kicked out. Headship would have gone to him by default even if he wasn't the previous Head's Heir."

"I thought he was from a distant branch." Skull scowled at Reborn. He was just asking to satisfy his own curiosity and, while he could understand that, his blunt manner was still annoying.

"The previous Head was my godfather." Skull huffed at Reborn's nod. That was the closest the hitman ever came to an apology and they both knew it.

"So what have you discovered, Viper?" Fon seemed as calm as ever, but the slight tensing of his shoulders clearly told them that he would appreciate less conversational detours.

"As I've told you all, our family was primarly Mists. Our rules also very clearly establish that we may _never_ reveal our knowledge to outsiders, so I can't be as detailed as I'd like, but I'll tell you all what I can."

The atmosphere instantly lost any levity, and Skull caught Verde's slightly pleading look, to which he shook his head. "Those are very, very old rules put in place by much more powerful people than me. There's no way for me to get around them and Viper could be in serious trouble as it is. Sorry."

Viper nodded in confirmation that it really had no possible work-arounds and continued. "From some of our texts and a couple of... independent sources who wish to remain anonymous, Skull and I have discovered that this Curse's primary objective isn't to turn us into toddlers. That is a side effect of the pacifiers' primary function, which is harvesting our Flames."

The concerned looks of the other Arcobaleno were too expertedly masked to give more than mild discomfort away, and Skull was somewhat surprised to note that he was able to read them well enough that he could tell that they were actually very shaken from this information.

"And do we know what the Curse is using our Flames for?" Colonello's voice was maybe a bit softer than usual, but apart from that nothing really gave away how unsettled the implications had made him.

"No, unfortunately. The good news is that our independent sources are reasonably confident that they have a realiable lead on a way to remove the Curse. They have hit a snag on a way to contain our Flames that could withstand them being constantly multiplied, but they have already worked out how to do the multiplying and how to transfer our pacifiers to said container so the Curse latches onto them instead of us."

"Could it be possible for me to work with them? I am the foremost expert on Flame-resistant materials and with my help, surely..."

Viper was shaking her head even before Verde stopped talking. "Can't. Sorry. You'd find out Family secrets."

"Oh. They are old Family allies, then?"

Skull came to Viper's rescue then, because it just wasn't fair to leave her to field their questions alone. "They are old allies of mine, who knew some of the secrets we are referring to already and risked their lives on my aid. And yet granting them permission to take some of the books on the Family Library was treading on thin ice. Sorry Verde, we weren't kidding when we said our family had very stringent ideas about who to associate with."

* * *

The following years were a vast improvement for all of them. There were still secrets between the lot of them, of course, but that was a matter of course for the Mafia.

The mere fact that they had been able and willing to skirt around their Family's rules to give them some much needed hope made the rest of their comrades grateful and more relaxed around them, and little by little the group started to come together more often and gain back some of the cohesion they had achieved when on their jobs as the Strongest Seven.

(They might not know _exactly_ what kind of Family Skull and Viper were from, or even if they were strictly Mafia, but they were all well-acquaintaced with the possible repercussions of revealing sensitive information from one's own Famiglia, especially if they had powerful Mists)

So they expressed their gratitude with subtle protection, passing along relevant information or, in Verde's case, with reports about the most Flame-resistant materials he had available.

(The reports he received back were obviously carefully edited, but that didn't matter to them as they could see the clear _progress_ those mysterious independent sources were making, and that ignited a kind of painful hope on them)

When one September Skull and Viper got a slightly melancholic look on their faces and started to act subtly clingy -slightly longer messages, carefully-casual requests for meetings to "catch up"...- they didn't even have to think about it to give them the support they seemed to need.

(It wouldn't be until many years later that they would discover that the pair of them had been depressed over sending Teddy to Hogwarts, and they would mourn the lost opportunity for teasing)

Life would have probably continued on like that if they hadn't received a letter from Luce thirteen years after the curse.

(And it came like a punch to the gut, the realization that no matter how close they all were, they weren't and had never been Elements under the same Sky. No true Elements would have ever simply up and _forgotten_ about their Sky like that, no matter their feelings on the matter)

Luce had been the one topic they all had unconsciously avoided, even more than Checkerface. Privately, all of them had thought that they had time. That they could have a talk with her at some point in the future, that they could work through the feelings of _confusion, betrayal, suspicion_ at their leisure.

Only, it seemed that Luce didn't have any time left.

They couldn't even resent her for keeping yet another thing from them, because they had all pointedly avoided communicating with her after the Curse. While they all bitterly resented finding out that Luce had information on the Curse she had kept to herself, not one of them held onto that feeling when going to talk to her.

After all, a dying woman wanted to talk to them for the last time.

* * *

Skull gave his surroundings a curious look. Luce's house was big, but much more homely and inviting than any of the Black properties had ever been.

It didn't surprise him that, even on her death bed, she hadn't offered platitudes or apologies. She had just smiled at them, thanked them for coming and asked if any of them wanted a private chat.

(There was a reason Skull and his fellow Arcobaleno had thought once that they could form a Bond with Luce. That was what had made the deception all the more painful)

When his turn came, Skull only had one question.

"If you had told us, would anything have changed?"

"Yes"

Skull nodded and got up from the seat at the foot of Luce's bed. He was grateful that she didn't try to justify her actions. He could guess that things would have changed for the worse. Luce had been affected too after all, so the consequences of the Curse going without Flames were probably severe.

He was tired of shouldering burderns for "the good of everyone", though. So he preferred not to know.

Skull stopped at the threshold of Luce's room just before opening the door. "I forgive you"

Skull exited without looking back, pretending he couldn't hear Luce's relieved sob.

Seeing Aria -and Merlin, she was younger than Teddy, barely fourteen- waiting outside effectively robbed him of his composure, though.

Those were Sky Flames. And Luce had written that her pacifier would be _inherited_ by someone else after her passing.

For a single second, Skull felt himself weak with denial and horror.

It couldn't be.

She was so _young_.

For a single second, Skull wanted to hate her. He couldn't bond with her and watch her die, the idea that someone so young had her days numbered was just so _wrong_.

It would be easy to do too. He just had to concentrate on all his resentment for Luce, all the bitterness from her deception and direct it to Aria. So what if he would need to mantain those memories always on the forefront of his mind? He didn't want to suffer through her death. Luce's already hurt, how much worse would it be when it was the turn of an innocent?

So what if he would need to keep those memories so fresh in his memory that even the most cursory Legilimency scan would pick them up, regardless of his shields?

The memory of his father bullying his old potions professor rose unbidden and startled a snort out of him.

Who knew he would ever have something in common with Snape?

At least that explained the man's irrational hatred. Snape had known his possibilities of survival were slim from the beginning, after all.


	7. Aria and hope

Luce's death passed with little fanfare.

They were Mafia, after all, and sadly used to losing people in one capacity or another. As cold-hearted as it sounded, none of them were going to be affected for long. What they did was help Aria adjust, because she was a teenager who had just lost her mother, got handed the reins of an entire Mafia Family _and_ Cursed.

Quite aside from what their feelings regarding Luce were, none of them were going to abandon Aria in that kind of situation, even if she had the silver lining of not having to be turned into a toddler.

(Skull shied away from thoughts of his one moment of weakness when he almost wanted nothing to do with Aria. He was not going to do something like that, and she wouldn't die if he had anything to say about it)

The next months were surprisingly productive, because the data Verde obtained from studying the effects of the Curse on Aria's Flames were apparentely the missing piece Hermione and Bill needed to make a breakthrough. Neither Skull nor Viper had understood either Verde's scientific jargon nor Hermione's answering technical questions, but the two geniuses had apparentely been able to understand one another despite their practically opposite especializations and the heavy censorship on Hermione's part.

The answer seemed closer than ever, and even Aria's spirits had been raised by that. Viper had even decided to try a new job, because apparentely she wanted to prove that she could be her best even in the state they all were in, which had made Skull overjoyed.

The rest of the Arcobaleno hadn't shared his enthusiasm, though.

He had just been happy that his cousin wanted to challenge herself and seemed to have definitively gotten out of the funk the Curse had had her on, but apparentely the group she wanted to join was bad news.

What he got out of their comrades' worried rambles was that the Varia was an assassin group, full of merciless and arrogant people that had infighting as a part of their culture to the point that it was the most common method of promotion.

He _probably_ should have stopped his first impulse of asking "Viper, are you homesick?", especially at the disbelievingly _astonished_ looks he received, but honestly... it was a serious concern. The Varia didn't sound all that different from the Black Family's... _traditional_ ocupation -even if they were never blatant about receiving payment for those they killed and/or socially ruined- and Viper _had_ been raised as one of them.

Judging by her exasperated look, he would probably pay for that comment, but he had had to make sure.

* * *

Reborn readjusted his fedora and valiantly pretended that he wasn't fidgeting.

It didn't work.

He hadn't felt so nervous since his very first hit, and while he could see that his companions were on the same boat, that was cold comfort.

It was time.

After almost fourteen years as a toddler, he was going to be free of this Curse. All of them were.

Maybe. It was possible that it wouldn't work. He tried to tell himself that getting his hopes up was dumb when he didn't even know who had worked on the solution or how they were going to pull it off, but it was hard.

Even if most of them were similarly in the dark, Skull and Viper seemed very confident -if still nervous- and he had gotten too used to rely on them on jobs to be able to truly doubt them.

Still, all the secrecy wasn't helping his nervousness any.

It didn't help that he _still_ hadn't been able to work out if their family was actually Mafia or not in the first place.

Viper had heavily implied it the few times they had managed to make her talk about them, but she never outright stated it.

Considering how incredibly cagey both her and Skull were on the matter, that in itself was suspicious. There was also the matter that no Family of powerful Mists had destroyed itself from infighting on the appropriate timeframe.

(He had _almost_ asked when the Estraneo mess happened, because lots of things seemed to fit with the limited amount of information they had been given, but the timelines didn't match. Even if they were a bunch of powerful Mists that had rather horrifying ideas for "improvement" -a _Possession Bullet_? What were they thinking?-, they had been destroyed because the whole of the Mafia turned against them, not due to infighting. There was also the fact that neither of them had reacted to it, and Skull had only gotten barely better at acting over the years)

He had toyed with the idea that they were actually disgraced nobility -not the established, powerful, realted-to-royalty kind, but the minor ones that squabbled for power and gave birth to truly _vicious_ practices and individuals-, but that didn't fit quite right either.

Both Skull and Viper exhibited signs of childhood abuse -very subtle, very _hidden_ signs, but they were there- and while that would fit with that kind of families, only Viper moved with the subtle flair that environment produced. He had to wonder what she had really meant when she said that Skull was "from a distant branch", because if he had been a civilian dumped into nobility life, _then_ dumped into the Mafia he could believe Viper's claims about his legendary luck.

The nobility theory seemed supported by their very different reactions. Viper became defensive whenever her competency was questioned, which was a sign of the classic emotional abuse those kind of families dished out.

Skull, however, was slower to react to verbal abuse, but being manhandled set off reflex responses that had honestly _scared_ Reborn the first time he witnessed them.

It had been the first time he found himself regretting pushing someone's buttons to see their reaction.

(The instant tension-then-loosening of Skull's muscles and the subtle use of his Flames to Propagate _Killing Intent_ of all things -which he hadn't even known was _possible_ \- had been bad enough, but the really scary part had been how instant and _subtle_ it had all been. Skull would have exploded if he had pushed further, and anyone else wouldn't have seen it coming. He didn't know in what kind of environment he had been raised to develop the instinct to bottle his violent responses and release them whenever the other party least expected it, but he could imagine some possibilities and he didn't like a single one of them)

The only problem with his idea was that no matter how much he investigated, he couldn't find any Family -Mafia, nobility, or otherwise- that had come so close to extinction -Viper hadn't said "two people", she had said "could count them on a single hand with fingers left over", so between two and four members- and it had been an endless source of frustration over the years.

Viper and Skull seemed confident that they wouldn't get problems from that quarter, but Reborn always liked to have all the facts to analyze the situation himself. Sure, the idea that the rest of the Family could cause a problem was laughable, but powerful people -especially powerful _crazy_ people- attracted enemies. And while they didn't seem overly concerned about their Family's old enemies, Reborn didn't want to chance it.

(He wasn't a worrywart. It was just common sense, even if the Lackey was too much of a happy-go-lucky idiot to understand the concept of readiness)

Embarrassingly, the only thing he had managed to do over the years to help them recover from their childhoods -and if he was also trying to ferret out more information, well, that was just an obvious opening they'd probably be disappointed in him if he didn't try to take advantage of- was helping Colonello with the "military-style therapy".

Which basically consisted on harsh language and physical challenges that emulated the treatment they received, but much more over-the-top and in a context in which it was expected of them to fight back.

(The puzzling good-naturedness with which Skull had initially received the nickname of Lackey had thrown him for a loop at first, but he had soon started snapping and scowling at him whenever he used it, which had been the whole point, so he didn't worry too much about it even if he _did_ make a note about that behaviour)

It was actually surprising how well Skull had taken to rise to the challenges, and the positive reinforcement whenever he showed a spine -with short phrases of "Finally" or "It seems you aren't as pathetic as you seemed after all", because there was a limit to how unobservant even Skull was- worked wonders.

Even if it took Viper an embarrassingly short time to work out what they were trying to do and fine them for their presumption. Her "take care of that idiot, he's the one who needs it" had been pretty funny, though. Because it became clear very soon that whatever those two did when they went to take care of their Family business, there was something -or someone- there that was helping her, no matter how much she denied needing help in the first place.

* * *

Fon was feeling absurdly grateful.

His first impulse after being Cursed had been rage. At Luce, at Checkerface, at the entire world.

It had been a sudden upending of his entire world, apparentely for no reason, and in that moment he had hated himself. For not investigating Checkerface more, for not suspecting Luce, for getting attached to the rest despite himself.

The only reason he hadn't given in to his instincts in that moment had been his own stubborn refusal to let his Flame type dictate his actions. Just like he suspected the rest of the Arcobaleno had worked to beat back the impulses every Flame Active felt, he had been proud of his ability to keep his calm in any situation.

Not that it had worked perfectly. The months immediately after the Curse were honestly a blur for him. He barely remembered feeling incredibly betrayed, and hurt, and hazy plans never to come back to Italy.

In great part because he was too busy getting revenge on the Bosses that had ordered him straight into Checkerface's ambush and then had the _utter gall_ to refer to him as weak, to be perfectly truthful. But he probably wouldn't have sought the others out even after accurately expressing his displeasure to those honorless bastards if the others hadn't reached out first.

It was somewhat humiliating that, in hindsight, he had given up from the start. While Lal joined the CEDEF for the express purpose of finding information about past Arcobaleno, Reborn made contacts everywhere, Verde conducted experiments nonstop, Colonello kept himself on the Mafia world's most popular vacation spot -where gossip flowed freely-, Viper called all of her old contacts and Skull scoured their mysterious Family's Library, Fon had just stopped.

He hadn't been the only one to do that at first, and he had taken apprentices from all over China in an effort to obtain more information with which to help his comrades afterwards, but he was somewhat ashamed that it wouldn't have even occurred to him to do that if the others hadn't taken the initiative.

And their efforts had bore fruit. They were waiting for "Jean" and "Arthur" so they could try to remove those unsightly pacifiers. Fon didn't know anything about them -and felt pretty certain that those were fake names-, nor did he need to. Those were Skull's comrades, who were going to help all of them, and that was enough for him.

He didn't even care that his contributions had ended up being largely useless, or about the possibility of failing. They had given him his _spirit_ back, his drive to fight and damn the consequences.

(And, some part of himself aknowledged, his faith on his friends as well)

That was already enough to make the trip back to that fateful hill more than worth it.

* * *

Verde was somewhat jittery.

(Nervousness was one of those bafflingly useless human impulses there was no way to fight against, no matter how much intellect one possessed)

Normally that in itself would be irksome, but he believed that, just this once, it was justified.

While he could usually count on his carefully studied hypotheses to be right, in this case he was working without all the variables. It was the one aspect of Mafia life that drived him absolutely up the wall, especially in this case when the answers he was denied affected him so personally.

The worst part was that he understood why he couldn't be let in on Family secrets. Even if the Mist contingencies Skull and Viper's Famiglia left weren't an issue, Family secrets were a very big deal on the Mafia, and they would be perfectly justified in not sharing even in their very special circumstances.

But he was, first and foremost, a man of science. Information hoarding was anathema to his sensibilities, and while he would never hold it against them for not telling him, having the answers so near was incredibly frustrating.

Jean had responded to his correspondence with obvious care not to reveal anything, which was already more than could usually be expected. But it simply wasn't enough for him. He _needed_ to know what the underlying principles and theories were so he could be absolutely sure this was going to work, no matter how sure Jean and Arthur were of themselves or how promising the results of their experiments were.

Verde, in the end, was the kind of person that needed to see to believe, and while he trusted Skull and Viper and, by extension, their contacts to a certain extent as well, he just wouldn't be completely at ease until he could see the results by himself.

* * *

Lal spied her -comrades? team? _friends?_ \- out of the corner of her eye.

There were hundreds of things she wanted to ask. Her Curse was incomplete, her Flame broken. Would this still work for her? And that was if this attempt worked at all in the first place. She was certain that all of them were acutely aware of the possibility of failure, but she firmly kept her doubts behind her teeth. She wasn't going to make them even more nervous, or start asking if she'd be free as well when they still didn't know if they were even on the right track to get rid of the Curse.

She was equally certain that they wouldn't give up if they weren't. And while some part of her berated her for that kind of baseless confidence, she also knew with the certainity born from years of working together that none of them would stop looking for a way to help her even if her corrupted version of the Curse wasn't lifted while theirs was.

All of Lal's instincts rebelled against putting that much trust on (technically) criminals that she didn't actually know all that much about.

Military life was very different from the Mafia, and she was used to close-knit units that knew absolutely everything about their members' lives. She had adapted to this new environment, but she was also suspicious of everyone by default, even if part of that was just her own nature.

That jaded nature was failing her as of late, however. No matter how much she tried to contain her hope, she could feel herself falling prey to the same sort of excited energy that had overtaken the rest.

(It only showed on the subtle swaying of legs and soft movement of arms and hands, little tells like unnecessary grooming and wasted movements, but none of them managed to fool any of the rest. They were the Best, and they knew each other too well sometimes)

She was blaming their influence for that one. And for a great many other little things. Reborn had taken poor Skull's abysmal luck as incentive to become a "harbringer of Chaos", insisting with a straight face that he was just trying to counteract his luck's craziness, and the rest of the guys had seemed to interpret that as a challenge.

Verde insisted that he was above such things, but she had caught him gleefully giving "trial runs" to some experiments that looked like little boys' toys more than once. No matter how sweet the gesture of making a miniaturized bike for Skull, there was no way he could spin "giving it a trial run" that didn't make it clear that he was just having fun.

Viper insisted that money was her only interest, but she'd seen her goad the others into betting more than once just to have a "legitimate" excuse to join them on horsing around.

Fon as well, could be incredibly petty and competitive when he wanted to, even if he at least had the decency to be subtle about it. Not that Colonello and Reborn's loud protests whenever he got ahead of them in any of their childish one-upmanship games let him be low-key about it.

Even Skull had gotten in on it more than once, for all that he was surprisingly serious under all the flamboyant make-up and outrageous acting.

Colonello, of course, was as much of a child as he had always been. Bright, cheerful and energetic as he was, Lal had wondered many times what he could see in someone as serious as her. She had been convinced that she was over that old insecurity, until the Curse made her confront the ugly possibility of a relationship without future prospects.

The idea of being together when they could barely do anything together and children were completely out of the question had left a sour taste on her mouth. She had thought to spare the both of them by breaking up, but the frantic search for a solution to the Curse had halted that train of thought in its tracks.

She had seen them all together again, and while the image was definetely jarring with all of them baby-sized, their intellect, teamwork, cunning... all of the things that had made them the Best were still there. And that went for her and Colonello as well. The foundations upon which their relationship was built... it was all there.

Lal didn't know if this attempt would work or not, and she was a jittery ball of nerves inside even if she didn't show it. But just for the fact that this undertaking had laid the groundwork for Colonello and her to get back together, it was already worth it.

* * *

Colonello was feeling incredibly optimistic.

He and Lal had recently gotten back together, the gang was together again, Lal had agreed to go out again, there was a good chance that the Curse was going to be lifted in a few hours... did he mention he and Lal were together again?

Colonello tried to supress -somewhat unsuccessfully- a happy grin.

If he was being brutally honest with himself, the mere fact that he and Lal were together made all of this worth it -to the point that he wouldn't even mind if they didn't get rid of the Curse.

Of course, he wasn't going to say it and let himself open for his -she was _his_ Lal again!- Lal to slap him for being an idiot. Or Reborn. Or Fon. Or Viper. Or Verde. Or, if they were truly lucky, Skull.

Skull _still_ had not done anything that even remotely qualified as "roughhousing", nevermind the kind of casual violence usual on the Army and the Mafia between friends, that was more of a test of reflexes and affectionate gesture than anything. He had concerns about that, not that he was going to say anything.

Reborn and him had done everything they could to help him, in great part as a thank you for all of his and Viper's efforts to break the Curse. And, considering what they suspected had happened to him, he had recovered admirably. So he wasn't going to air his issues for all to see. He was pretty sure everyone had their own thoughts and suspicions on the matter anyway.

* * *

Aria clasped her hands in front of her pacifier. She had always known that she would wear it someday, but she hadn't dared hope something like this could happen.

Even if something in her insisted on reassuring the Arcobaleno that she had _Seen_ that the Curse would be lifted, she could only seem to anxiously await Viper bringing the older red-haired man and the fuzzy-haired woman she had _Seen_ that morning.

(She very pointedly _didn't think_ about how the Arcobaleno should look closer to those ages than the youthful appearences she knew they would eventually get back)

It was somewhat strange that she couldn't get any details about who they were and that they even seemed somewhat shielded from her Sight -much like Skull and Viper, actually, maybe it was a Family secret- but she was too grateful to be bothered by that.

They were trustworthy, and that was all she needed to know.


	8. Hermione and curse-breaking

Viper suppressed an exasperated sigh with the ease of long practice. She knew that, if asked, Skull would look at her and be all innocent eyes as he claimed that _of course_ he was excited. The Curse was getting lifted, his friends were there and the whole Arcobaleno were together, after all.

Sometimes Viper really wondered if Skull was a terrible actor with an unusually active subconscious or if he'd been playing them all for years. Granted, she was pretty sure it was the former, but still...

Jean and Arthur. Hermione and Bill's second names. Sure, using their second names in order to confirm identities without unnecessarily tipping any potential listeners off was one thing. But they had been working on this for _months_. They could have forged aliases instead of presenting yet another clue to the others.

Skull acting damn near the same way as when he was Harry and practically _giving information for free_ every time he opened his mouth was also almost criminally unsubtle. And the worst part was that Viper couldn't for the life of her determine if he was doing it on purpose or not.

With this much free information floating around, it would be a miracle if the Statute of Secrecy lasted a week under the combined might of Reborn, Lal and Verde. And that was factoring in time to rest in case the removal of the Curse had side effects.

Not that she had anything against that, amusing as watching Reborn hit his head against the metaphorical wall trying to figure them out was. But still, her point stood. If the Magical Ministries (any of them) were actually competent, she'd actually worry that they would be accussed of breaching the Statute to a group of Muggles.

(An offense that was more heavily punished than performing magic in front of or _on_ Muggles, which had implications she was doing her best not to think too much about)

But they weren't. Just like those who actually wrote the damn thing had probably not been competent either, because the possibility of Muggles working out the existance of Magic by themselves was not even contemplated. It made sense considering the general attitude wizards tended to have regarding Muggles, but it was still underwhelmingly easy. No need to search for loopholes, just dangle an interesting mystery before their teammates' eyes and wait.

Of course, most people wouldn't be able to work it out. But they were Arcobaleno. The only reason the others hadn't launched a full-scale investigation into their pasts yet was probably the fact that they actually had some semblance of respect for boundaries.

Now that Skull had practically put a neon sign reading 'open season, please do try and work it out', though... Viper smirked. The Wizarding World was in for a rude shock.

* * *

Skull was _ecstatic_

And also mildly terrified.

Sure, the Curse was getting lifted and as a bonus he got to introduce Bill and Hermione to the rest of the gang plus Aria.

That was great, amazing even.

But if the Curse was lifted, as surely as the Sun rose in the East, Potter Luck was going to come back.

It had not been easy to notice at first, because the aftermath of the Curse hadn't left him in any state to appreciate silver linings, but he had eventually wised up over the years. Potter Luck no longer affected him. Things that normally would have him cringing in pre-emptive discomfort didn't deliver.

It had been a really strange feeling. Social functions didn't explode in horrible disasters of gossip and melodrama, he could attend any match or even _play_ in a sport without any kind of overly dramatic happenings...

Even Halloween had become just a normal day. Halloween!

(He had spent nearly fourteen years as a Potter Luck-free toddler and he _still_ hadn't gotten over how weird that was)

But he wouldn't rob his comrades of the opportunity of being free again just to make his life easier.

(And how crazy was it that his life was easier as a baby-sized adult?)

So Skull gave another nearly-maniacal grin, nodded at Hermione and started channeling his Flames into the container the goblins had made (for a very, very steep price, of course) from the alloys Verde had provided.

* * *

Eight people pushing Flame into the containers, a brief flare of bright light and suddenly a strange man was there. Hermione palmed her wand even as she felt the Arcobaleno's gazes sharpen.

(It really said something about their desperation to be free that none of them stopped the Transmission. Still, knowing that they were so aware of their surroundings while also keeping their minds clear soothed a lot of her worries about them being good enough to watch Harry's back)

"Can I help you?"

The odd man in the iron hat just looked at her incredulously until he apparentely found his voice again.

"What are you doing?" There was more than just a bit of disbelief in his tone, as well as -oddly enough- just a hint of wonder.

Hermione gave him her sweetest smile -the kind she used when she needed to face some puffed-up Ministry official and make him understand that no, _Harry Potter really **didn't** want to bother with politics_. Only this time using her hard-earned skills as a duellist wasn't completely off the table, which really, was an improvement.

"Oh, just helping some friends of mine. May I know why you came here?"

The man seemed to go from bewildered to wary, which she appreciated. She had a very good idea of who he was, after all, and it would do him a world of good to be wary of her.

Not that it would help him any against her, much less against Bill, who was circling around him and putting up wards already. But it would be good for her ego, which _might_ save him some suffering.

And suddenly he seemed to rally himself and become somber and grave in that 'I know more than you and you should take heed' way she had always hated. Oh well. Not that she would have let him off easy anyway.

"Stop this at once. The Arcobaleno are pillars of the Tri-ni-sette, the ones tasked to protect the world from destruction. Without them..."

"The world would only destabilize if the system stopped receiving Flames. Nothing says those Flames have to come from their bodies at all."

And he was back to looking flabbergasted. Really. It was like trying to explain to a Pureblood that his precious 'traditional' ways could be changed or improved without losing the significance or magic of their underlaying reasoning.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "These alloys are reinforced to withstand the pressure of constantly renewing and expelling Flames. The Curse only changes focus from humans to inanimate objects. Which makes it easier all around, because no energy is being wasted on mantaining the toddler bodies so they don't crack under the strain, by the way."

"But the interlocking..."

"The three sets of curses are still connected" this time it was Bill who interrupted "and, by the way, not separating those? Sloppy. Making every type of energy go directly where it needs to go might have been more difficult, but less energy would be lost in the superfluous union of all of them."

The man was wearing a rather odd mask, but Hermione still got the impression that he was staring boggly-eyed at them.

(His flinch at realizing Bill was speaking from _right behind him_ had been amusing, though)

"So!" Hermione was being purposefully chipper and delighted on the confusion the man practically exuded. "Would you kindly release what's left of their bindings and transfer them to the containers? It would make everything go that much smoother and faster. _Please_ "

Ah, the art of smiling with way too many teeth while making a polite request. Who knew putting up with those irritating twats at the Ministry would one day come in handy?

* * *

If he wasn't concentrating on pushing as much Flame as possible while mantaining the flow steady, Verde would be cackling at Checkerface's impression of a goldfish.

Mask or no mask, it was obvious by his body language that he had dropped his mouth open sometime in the course of the conversation. Well, more accurately, in the course of Jean proving that his precious system was neither perfect nor 'the only way'.

Really, who did that man think he was? Even the most inexperienced newbie scientist knew that hypothesis and theories were shared for a _reason_.

That lesson was probably the most important one to know in order to advance. If one didn't get second opinions and let his ideas be checked, tragic results like this Curse were bound to happen.

Verde and his companions had't had an easy time of it, but at least they wouldn't die from the strain like Luce had.

(He carefully ignored the tangled mess of emotions that always came from remembering the Sky)

Thinking about the many, many historical accounts of Arcobaleno that died because of the Curse, though, made him want to tie Checkerface down and show him how _real_ science should be done. With contrasting results, _thorough_ checking of theories and the help of specialists on other fields when possible.

Preferably by testing some of his theories on the human body's limits in regards to pain on the bastard.

He had marginally more important things to do at the moment, sadly. So he let Jean verbally tear into him instead.

A sudden pulling sensation startled him almost enough to make him lose his concentration and he was startled when his Flames started leaving his body faster without any input from him, but Verde soon worked out what was happening.

At least the bastard was doing something useful for a change.

The increased rate of transmission of their Flames meant that they finished earlier, even if all of them -even Skull, and _that_ was definetely a first- ended up exhausted.

"I will take care of giving these containers to their new handlers, then"

Verde weakly glared at the Man on the Iron Hat through half-lidded eyes. Of course he would have already picked replacements. And he was acting as if this had been his idea, even!

Jean's lips thinned and Verde thought that she'd tear into him for acting so arrogantly when _they_ had been the ones to fix his flawed system, but what she said instead made his thoughts crash to a halt.

"The Vindice, right?"

She looked displeased, but if the reason was what Verde was _praying_ was just a tiredness-induced wild idea of his...

Checkerface nodded and Verde paled.

It made sense, and he **didn't** like that at all.

(For once he wished he had been wrong. A first time for everything)

The Curse took Flames from them, and it would have continued to do so until their death.

The Vindice looked remarkably corpse-like. If Flames were made from Will to Live and an Arcobaleno didn't stop rebelling against their death on their last moments, even when there were no more Flames to draw from...

It wasn't so farfetched that they would find another kind of power to cling to life with from the sheer refusal to die.

(Verde really, really wished that it was a farfetched idea. Unfortunately, his endless drive to discover had made him study the 'Flames of Night' some years before. And at the time his conclusion had been 'almost a void, more like the _abscence_ of Flame -of Soul, of Will- than like any Flame he had ever seen')

Verde looked at his teammates from the corner of his eyes. It seemed that they had reached a similar conclusion as him. In fact, most of them were looking at _him,_ as if asking him to tell them that it was impossible.

His expression seemed to be answer enough, if the amount of tired cursing that followed was any indication.

The tension in the clearing jumped up abruptly when Skull incorporated himself into a more or less upright position -and _how_ he was doing that when Verde himself felt that moving his eyelids was a chore was something he'd dearly love to know-, a truly ugly scowl on his face.

" ** _You_** " Huh, Skull was capable of _growling out his words_. Verde had been convinced that growling itself was beyond human vocal chords. Fascinating.

"You Cursed us. For more than thirteen years, we've suffered under your shackles. And you claim ownership of that which we made to free ourselves?"

That... that was a very archaic way of speaking. And that was also a tone he had never heard Skull employ.

Judging by Viper's grimly satisfied grin and Jean and Arthur's vindictively pleased expressions, they _had_.

Even more interestingly, Checkerface was looking not only distinctly uncomfortable, but like he was trying to leave. But why wouldn't he just use a Mist portal...? Oh.

So _that_ was what Arthur had been doing while Jean distracted the bastard. Verde itched to ask what that strange energy was -those were not Flames and he'd be _damned_ if he let them continue to brush off his questions-, but he could wait until after this played out.

Skull seemed to be building up that kind of energy himself anyway, so it probably wouldn't be long. Even better, he would get a demonstration of how it was used. Though Verde was man enough to admit that his anticipatory grin had more to do with whatever Skull was going to inflict upon Checkerface than with having a new kind of power to experiment with.

"I wish upon you a life of petty annoyances and minor inconveniences!"

...

Verde's brain was too active to ever need 'rebooting', but this was probably the closest he had ever gotten to being completely blank.

At least he had the satisfaction of being the first one to completely come back to his senses after _that_ little declaration.

The sound of a slap indicated that Viper had apparentely been the second.

"You _idiot_! You used our Family's Gift for _that_?!"

Verde filed away the information that that kind of power was apparently inheritable and the implications that had in regards to Viper and Skull's elusive Famiglia and moved a little to keep the cousins on his field of vision.

Viper had ended up face down on the ground, probably from the exertion of slapping the Cloud and then yelling on top of it. Not that he was blaming her.

"You know how powerful he is, Vi!" And how that irritating brat could sound so perfectly harmless and whiny after displaying a previously-unkwon power was a mystery that was going to give him headaches, Verde just knew it. "He would have eventually broken anything more malicious than that, but this way he'll suffer for a longer amount of time because the headache of getting rid of the curse won't be worth it!"

And the moron sounded so proud of his logic, too.

Judging by Viper's faintly twitching fingers, he wasn't the only one who felt the impulse to throttle Skull.

Apparentely Checkerface had escaped whatever Arthur had done to restrict him while they were busy questioning Skull's sanity, because he was collecting the new containers with a vaguely sheepish feel about him.

"I'll... I'll just be going then"

He dropped some of the containers and face-planted while trying to move carrying them all, so at least Skull's curse seemed to have worked. Verde wasn't sure if that made the situation better or worse.

* * *

The utter _rotten **bastard**_ that had almost turned them all into Vindice -and from there into Dementors, there was no doubt left about it on Skull's mind- hadn't been gone more than a minute before the sound of a gun cocking signalled that Reborn had snapped back to his senses.

"Lackey...!"

"Oh, leave him be. Malicious curses tend to backfire rather spectacularly." Hermione didn't sound happy with his choice anyway, but he grinned all the same. She of all people could appreciate logic.

Viper didn't seem to share the sentiment, because she huffed.

"Our family specialized on those and it survived for a long time. Pretty sure he could have afforded casting _one_."

"I am not going to risk it for someone like him, Viper" Skull's harsh snort seemed to have been all she needed to realize who he was thinking about and why he wasn't going to sink to that kind of revenge, so he smiled at his cousin to take the bite out of his words.

She was more traditionally Black than him in that Viper could be truly devious when thinking up ways to get back at those who wronged her, but she wouldn't take it too far. And she understood the risks inherent to magical vengeance, probably better than himself.

And then Bill seemed to decide to cut through the tension of the situation.

Unfortunately, he did so by picking him up, handing him to Hermione and exclaiming "Congratulations! It's a boy"

If he hadn't been so tired, Skull would have taken a swipe at the arse instead of settling for a dirty look.

At least his friends were chortling and guffawing instead of irritated now.

"Well, I won't say no to taking advantage while you are still hug-sized." Even Hermione was laughing at him. Traitors, all of them.

Skull crossed his arms and shamelessly pouted -Hermione _did_ have a point about taking advantage while they still could, after all.

Of course, because Potter Luck loved dramatic irony, that was the moment five Death Eater wannabes Apparated into the clearing.

Hermione and Bill had just damn-near exahusted themselves with the spells they used to change the focus of the pacifiers from the Arcobaleno to the metal containers, the Arcobaleno save Viper and himself didn't know anything about magic and they were even more exahusted than his old friends.

Skull grinned. Those fools didn't stand a chance.

He jumped from Hermione's arms right as she cast a Protego. The five morons who thought attacking them was a fine idea had had the courtesy of transfiguring some rocks and sending them to attack, so not only had Hermione been the second to cast a spell -and thus anything she did would be covered by the Statute as legitimate self-defense- but those thugs had been the ones to breach the Statute.

He spied the Arcobaleno getting out of the line of fire by the corner of his eye. Bill was already laying protective wards around them. It really paid to have competent friends.

They hadn't made a move to suggest that they were unfamiliar with the power being used, just gotten out of range and started _looking_.

Skull gave it ten minutes before they worked out how to bypass magical shields with long range attacks -which was the only thing they'd need in order to wipe the floor with these jokers. He grinned even wider. It seemed he'd need to take them out before those ten minutes were up if he wanted to be able to show off a little.

They might even be a challenge that way.

Skull stopped dodging -and it was _interesting_ that they were focusing on him, he'd definetely need to interrogate them- just long enough to take his wand out, then charged at them with renewed speed.

For all his excitement -and _wow_ Reborn and Colonello were bad influences- the results were pretty underwhelming.

His victi-opponents hadn't expected him to be so fast, which, really? He hadn't even used his Flames to augment his body in any way. They also had had rather bad aim and kept shooting spells to where his center of mass would have been on his adult body, which made bothering to dodge almost pointless.

Why had he been worried about Potter Luck again?

A little disappointed, Skull left his trussed up and conscious -not even refraining from using stunners had made the fight last beyond five minutes- goons to Hermione's tender mercies. He wasn't going to ask why she carried Veritaserum with her, because the possible answers would probably be exasperating, if sweet. She never did like leaving anything to chance, and this was her first time meeting the Arcobaleno save Viper face to face, after all.

Skull had just reached the rest of his teammates and opened his mouth to explain -it was perfectly legal now that the Statute had been blown, and Hermione was a government official with authority to decide if an Obliviation was necessary- when his oldest friend's hiss of anger made dread settle like a stone on his stomach.

He never should have tempted fate like that, he knew he shouldn't have made light of Potter Luck.

Hermione faced him with an expression of absolute fury that by all rights should be worn by avenging goddessess about to smite someone only and Skull braced himself for the bad news.

(Later, he'd laugh at the attempt. Nothing could have prepared him for those three words)

"They've got Teddy!"


	9. Teddy and freedom

A purple haze clouded Skull's vision, but he couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge it.

Every inch of his attention was on the three words Hermione had just uttered, repeating themselves in a loop in his head.

_They've got Teddy. They've got Teddy. They'vegotTeddy **They'vegotTeddy**_

" ** _Where?!_** "

He managed to take his mind off the thoughts of **RIPTEARKILL** that had almost consumed him when he registered Hermione glaring at him.

She was looking oddly strained as well as irritated at him. "Pull yourself together! You just made them collapse!"

The shock was enough to marginally calm him down and he was just about to ask how he could have _possibly_ done that without touching them when Reborn's dry voice gave him the answer.

"You just Multiplied your Killing Intent, moron. That and all the Cloud Flames you're exuding knocked them out cold."

"... Is that even possible?" Why had nobody told him?! Had he been doing that all this time without realizing it?

Reborn's deadpan stare spoke volumes. "I didn't know it was possible either until I saw you do it a couple of years ago"

Skull grimaced apologetically and started consciously controlling his Flames again so they stopped bothering them. Now was not the time to lose his senses.

(He'd have plenty of opportunities once he found where they had his godson and _destroyed_ whoever had taken him)

He didn't even have a chance to cast a _Reenervate_ , though, because Viper had already taken out a piece of paper to use her own version of scrying.

The first time he had seen it he had been a little grossed out and even laughed at her paranoia for using the one body fluid that was always mixed with external particles -thus obscuring her DNA- for it, but now he couldn't be more grateful for her oddities.

Squibs could see Dementors and weren't affected by Muggle-repelling wards, wich was what had made several wizards theorize that maybe they _did_ possess magic, but lacked the means of externalizing it.

Viper had proved that theory correct when she managed to scry using her body fluids as a medium instead of the usual water. It also had the advantage of being a superior version than the standard -nothing short of a _Fidelius_ would obscure her target's position from her method- and not needing a basin or other supplies to work. She had also gotten very good and very fast at it.

"He's at home" Viper blinked at the paper as if that'd change her results, then directed a somewhat bewildered look at him.

A flash of hurt accompanied the memory of a certain night on the Ministry when he was younger and Skull took out his magic mirror.

Less than two minutes later found Skull deadpanning at the image of his godson being smothered in a hug by his grandmother. "Spill"

 _"... I was just about to call?"_ Teddy's feeble explanation didn't move him one iota and Skull let it show on his expression.

His godson grimaced. _"Well, as you know I had gone to see Durmstrang with some friends of mine as a sort of graduation treat and... I sort of... got kidnapped?"_

Viper was now looking over his shoulder and Teddy wilted under her, Skull and Andromeda's combined glares. _"Oh, come on! I was careful, I didn't get separated from the group. I just left them a minute to go to the bathroom of the café we were in and these guys on stupid masks threw a Portkey at me"_

Skull looked at the rest of the Arcobaleno at that, but they seemed content to leave the questions until after the situation was resolved. He appreciated it.

_"Well, they seemed to only want information about you, so I answered everything... Sorry about that, I figured you'd be able to deal with them, I didn't think they'd really believe anything I said and not use Veritaserum to corroborate or anything... Bloody idiots"_

"Or the one interrogating you was a Legilimens and didn't _need_ Veritaserum" Skull was grimly satisfied at his godson's paling face. It was never good to underestimate one's opponents -he fully acknowledged the hipocrisy on that statement, but he had the experience to back up his occassional bout of cockiness. Teddy did not. "You did well telling them what they wanted to know. I could take them"

Teddy took on a nasty grin at that. _"I told them everything they wanted to know, and nothing_ but _what they asked about. I bet they didn't see Auntie Lulu coming"_

Viper huffed amusedly at that. "Yes, had they lasted more than five minutes against your uncle I would have been their undoing"

Skull very carefully _didn't look_ at his grinning friends. He'd love to warn them against teasing Viper about Teddy's nickname for her, but he could see that she was already looking forward to "educating" them and... it was every man for themselves, honestly.

(He was _not_ getting between Viper and bloody vengeance. She probably only wanted to use the nickname as an excuse to take out her anger about Teddy's abduction and Checkerface's... _everything_ on them, so he'd pray that they found whatever remained of those **suicidal idiots** that didn't know that they were dead yet before one of them called her Lulu. It was really the only thing he could do for them)

Viper's voice broke him out of his reverie before his expression could give any warning to the listening Arcobaleno, and for a moment he wondered if she had done it on purpose.

"How did you escape?"

Teddy looked really proud at that. _"Mimicked the appearence of one of them and left right through the front door. That's what they get for assuming I was helpless without my wand! I even managed to get it back before leaving and activating my emergency Portkey"_

Those news made both Skull and Viper smile. Even Andromeda seemed proud, though she didn't stop her fussing. "Good job, cub. Wait a couple of days and you'll be able to leave the house. We'll call when we finish the clean up"

_"Bugger all. Do I really have to be on house arrest? I already proved I can escape on my own!"_

Viper and Andromeda answered that on unison.

"And they'll know you are a metamorphmagus and be prepared for it next time"

_"Language, young man! And I already told you you would. Even if your aunt and uncle gave the okay I wouldn't have let you leave until they finish putting those **cockroaches** where they deserve"_

Teddy pouted and Skull elected not to inform his godson that his grandmother meant "the next great adventure" and not Azkaban.

(Honestly, Skull felt that Azkaban was a worse fate)

Viper and Skull ended the call and faced the Arcobaleno's various raised eyebrows.

"Well... that was my godson. Look guys, I promise we'll explain everything but as you saw I just promised to lift his house arrest as soon as possible and for that we'll need to leave for a while, so if you could just wait a bit..."

"Oh, just tell them already" At Skull's look of astonishment, Hermione smiled in a way that was not in any way reassuring "I'll need to tell Ron and Kingsley so we can contact the Scandanivan Federation's authorities. We wouldn't want to cause an international incident, don't you think?"

Skull blinked and chuckled weakly "Ah... Hehe, forgot about that for a moment. It's not that I don't want to make this all legal and such but, well... do you really think involving the Ministries is a good idea? They aren't the most... swift enforcers of the law"

His side-glances at Viper -because Hermione was looking less and less amused with each passing word- were finally answered when she rolled her eyes and came to his aid.

"This is a Family matter between the Blacks and whoever this people are. Governments shouldn't involve themselves on a Family feud"

"Those rules were changed more than a hundred years ago. Even if they weren't, Teddy was abducted in a public place" Hermione sighed at their mulish expressions "Oh, don't look at me like that. I am just trying to make sure that you can rain unholy vengeance or whatever you two have planned without the Aurors coming for your heads. Ron has a surprisingly good head for politics, I'll have you know. And Malfoy owes us big. That's the most prominent pureblood leaders of the 'Light' and 'Dark' families united, not to mention a smattering of war heroes and *your* implicit support. The Scandinavian Minister will be bending over backwards to let you do what you please"

Skull looked at her slightly incredulously " _Malfoy_? Really?"

Hermione's smirk was just this side of devious "He's been working _very_ hard to mend the damage the War did to his family name. He'll jump at the chance to 'prove' that the Malfoys have redeemed themselves. And he's pretty good at the cut-throat thing in politics, for all that he's a coward when on an actual battlefield"

Skull sighed mullishly and turned around to help them tie up the morons that attacked them so Hermione and Bill could Portkey them away to Britain. Only, Bill had already done that. As well as suppressed their magic. And made sure they would _stay_ unconscious for the trip. With some magical restraints that made Skull want to grimace just from looking at them.

... Right, Bill had lost a little brother on the War. And he was a father. Of children that could have just as easily been used to get to 'Harry Potter Man-Who-Conquered' as Teddy. Probably for the best to remember that.

Skull debated for a second offering him a spot to help with their fight, but in the end he didn't. Bill wasn't used to fighting with them, and he probably wanted to be with his family right now anyway.

They said their goodbyes -their friends were _really_ interested once they saw the Portkey on action- and Skull and Viper looked at each other, a little lost.

Where did they even _begin_ to explain?

* * *

Lal wanted to roll her eyes at Skull and Viper's lost expressions. Sure, explaining the existance of a whole other different society -for what else could this be?- was difficult, but it was not like they didn't have suspicions and theories already. They should just get on with it.

Colonello seemed to agree with her, because he _did_ roll his eyes.

"So. Start from the beginning, kora. What power were you using and how widespread is your society?"

Viper's lips twitched while Skull seemed to do a double-take. Honestly. Sometimes it was insulting how low Skull's standards usually were. As if they wouln't have connected the dots with this many clues.

"It's magic. Don't look at me like that, Verde! It's what it's called and you just saw me use a wand"

The scientist seemed to struggle with himself before pushing his glasses up his nose -wow, he must have been _really_ irritated for that tell to appear- and nodding somewhat begrudgingly.

That was the face of a man that was holding his tongue until he had all the information to properly deny what he had been told if Lal had ever seen one. Skull knew it too, if his grimace was any indication.

Viper picked up the thread with an air of bored exasperation that sent alarms through Lal's head. "The Magical society is very old, and very widespread. They hide their homes and sometimes entire towns with barriers that redirect attention of any non-magical, somewhat like Mist barriers, and they have their own governments. Each country has its own Ministry of Magic, that is the ruling body of that particular Wizarding Nation. They are completely independent, and some countries that exist in this society don't exist in normal society and viceversa. The Scandinavian Federation, for example, takes up what you know as Finland, Sweden and Norway."

It was at that point that her expression closed off almost completely in a mask of absolute boredom and Lal felt her insides freeze. She had only seen her like that as 'Mammon', when she worked as an assassin for the Varia. Viper was doing her damn best to distance herself emotionally from what she was about to say, and Skull's horribly hidden look of concern wiped out the feeble hope that it was merely out of historical shame and not something deeply personal.

"Of course, they have their own culture and prejudices. Magic is a power that not everyone possesses, and while usually it runs in families, it is possible for children to be born with it despite their parents having none. These are called Muggleborns, Muggle being the term the British magicals use to refer to non-magicals. The reverse is, obviously, also possible. A child of magical parents that possesses no magic is called a squib"

Lal instantly flashed back to that day so long ago when they had all just met. 'We discovered that Skull is my closest living relative'. And they had all just seen that Skull had magic.

Lal had to bite her lip to keep from cursing strongly and vehemently, because their comments about their family having 'very stringent ideas about who was an acceptable addition to the family' suddenly took another meaning completely. And Viper had been kicked out.

Skull's harsh glare Reborn's way was all the confirmation any of them needed, so the hitman smoothly changed the question he was about to ask.

"So you two are British?"

Viper's snort told them what she thought of their attempts to be sensitive, but that was alright as long as she didn't dwell on the bad memories.

"We are. I was born on the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, while Skull is actually the last Potter. Since his grandmother was a Black and his godfather the last Head of the Blacks, he has dual headship. Considering he's a halfblood -pureblood father and muggleborn mother- I'm quite sure all our common ancestors have been spinning in their graves even before he reinstated me in the family"

"I am assuming halfblood means someone from 'mixed blood' " at Viper's nod, Fon continued "so how many generations of magic-users there need to be for a family to be considered of 'pure blood'?"

"Technically someone can be considered pureblood as long as all four of his grandparents -and his parents, of course- have magic. But our society won't consider them 'true' purebloods if they can't show a completely Muggle blood-free Family Tree for at least a couple of centuries back."

Skull's sardonic smirk made them all revisit Viper's proclamation, when they first found out that the two were cousins, that their family had practiced and even 'encouraged' inbreeding. Lal wasn't the only one to blanch.

"Just how large is that society?!" Verde's left eye was twitching in a please-tell-me-you-are-joking fashion, and Lal sort of didn't want to hear Skull's answer.

"Not nearly as large as it would need to be, I assure you. Though almost none of them are as inbred as they claim, there are lots of liberally edited family genealogies floating around as 'proof' of several families' purity. I saw once the result of a Family who claimed -and actually had some pretty compelling proof- to be 'the purest', with over a milennia of pureblood wizards and witches marrying only other pureblood wizards and witches. It wasn't pretty."

Lal wasn't sure if that gagging noise had come from Verde, Fon, Colonello or even herself, but she was betting on 'all of the above'. Reborn was way too controlled to show more than mild disgust and Aria seemed thankfully distracted by trying to _See_ this society now that she knew they were there.

She would have normally scowled at Skull for his childish amusement at grossing them out, but she was too busy feeling horrified at the implications on the kind of way Viper and him had been raised.

Of course, Verde wouldn't allow more than half a minute of somber silence before bursting out when he couldn't contain the reaction at his 'unscientific bullshit' tolerance hitting zero anymore.

"They actually call themselves witches and wizards" For all that he looked seconds away from tearing his hair out in frustration at the ridiculousness of it all, Verde's voice was impressively level. In the way of someone that had reached the end of their patience and was just waiting until he could start dealing out some violence, but still.

"Yupp" And he actually popped the 'p'. Skull was getting way too much amusement out of all of this. If he wasn't succeeding at lifting Viper's spirits as well Lal would have given him a cuff around the head already. "And they are just as illogical, irrational and _unscientific_ as the name implies"

Verde made a low keening sound that was only half affectation -it seemed he was more worried about Viper's previously-dark countenance than he had let on- and Fon and Colonello chuckled along with Skull.

At least Viper was sharing an amused smirk with Reborn at Aria's startled expression at the sudden commotion. Still, Lal was more concerned about understanding the society their friends came from and the kind of enemies they had.

"So what are the requirements for a Family to be considered 'Most Ancient and Noble' and not merely pureblooded? Though I assume it has to do with ridiculous levels of inbreeding" Lal couldn't have stopped her deadpan addition had she tried. Honestly, the Black Family sounded just _gross_.

She was somewhat surprised at Skull's slow blink, as if just realizing that he didn't know. Viper's grin was full of genuine mirth as she answered.

"Giving a substantial amount of gold to the Minister. It caused such an uproar on its time that the guy had to resign and no pureblood family has ever received that title again -there was actually a Law made specifically about that. The Blacks were called 'Most Ancient and Noble' sarcastically for a couple of decades, but when the scandal blew over everyone assumed the title actually meant something and we've worn it with pride since. This happened on the mid-1700s, mind"

Silence.

Complete and utter silence.

Lal idly wondered if this was what Verde felt all the time when someone said something and he went on rants about 'excessive stupidity' and 'contaminating the gene pool'.

They didn't get a chance to continue the conversation -or give in to the desperate hope of asking if Viper was serious- because Skull fell down from how hard he was laughing.

* * *

Teddy scowled - _not_ pouted, no matter what Granny said- from his place on the library.

It just wasn't fair. He had lived an almost completely trouble-free education at Hogwarts, and the first time he hit a minor snag he got house arrest.

(Teddy was aware that for most people a kidnapping wouldn't be a 'minor snag', no matter how fast he got free, but he had grown up hearing stories about what his Uncle Skull and Auntie Lulu's childhoods were like. When he entered Hogwarts, he got to hear all about his Uncle's own student days and they **still** refused to tell him what they got up to nowadays, so he felt that they were both being incredibly hypocritical)

It wasn't like he couldn't understand their fears. Considering the kind of lives they had lived, it'd be more concerning if they weren't overprotective. After all, no matter how much they had trained him -both on Magic and Flames-, the truth was that he _hadn't_ seen any kind of real action.

He wasn't even sure the kidnapping could count as 'action'. Those guys had been _pathetic_.

But he was seventeen! Being cooped up in the house for the foreseeable future right after he had graduated -he hadn't even finished his post-graduation trip!- would just make him utterly miserable _fast,_ no matter how much he loved his Granny.

Of course, telling that to them or to his Granny would only garner him unsympathetic looks. If Auntie Lulu was feeling especially irritated she might even point out that he clearly was getting sloppy if those guys had managed to hit him with a Portkey at all even after he had been trained to Varia -whatever that was, because she _still_ wouldn't tell- and Auror standards.

Teddy's sullen musings were interrupted by Auntie Hermione coming to their house and speaking with Granny. He was pretty sure that they knew he was eavesdropping and were just indulging him, but his pride had taken a lot of beatings recently, so he chose to ignore that.

Then he actually paid attention to the conversation and had to fight not to laugh. He had known that most of his assorted Aunts and Uncles were ruthless from their experiences with the Second Blood War, but...

Getting Uncle Ron, Mister Malfoy, _the Minister_ and Aunt Hermione to terrify the Scandinavian Minister so Uncle Skull and Auntie Lulu -with the help of their _just as badass_ friends- could 'clean house' on what remained of the Death Eaters on the continent?

Teddy honestly wasn't sure if he shouldn't be feeling sorry for his kidnappers.


	10. Reborn and suspicions

Fon smiled indulgently at the sight of Skull laughing himself to tears over his family's frankly ridiculous history. Outwardly, at least.

Inwardly, he was trying not to hyperventilate.

Spells. _Curses_. **Magic** in all its mystical, actually-not-fantastical glory.

It wouldn't have affected him as much -because, really, Flames weren't that different- if it wasn't for the stories passed down on his Clan about powerful sorcerers from their line. Sorcerers that called curses upon people who wronged -or simply displeased in some way- their Head.

Curses like the ever-famous "May you Live in Interesting Times".

Skull seemed to be under the impression that their initial incredulous reactions towards his attitude stemmed from suspicion when they were trying to ascertain who was Checkerface's agent. That was not entirely false, but the main reason they had reacted poorly to him was simply disbelieving shock.

At first sight, Skull was the most laid-back Cloud in the Mafia. Someone who would never get angry -he might be miffed or mildly irritated, but those moods passed quickly.

And each and every one of the Arcobaleno knew that that was simply _not possible_.

Flames were the manifestation of a person's very _soul_. Each type was associated with certain personality traits that, while not absolute, would certainly influence a person's behavior.

Stereotyping based on a person's Flame was stupid, of course, and all of the Arcobaleno used those kind of preconceptions to their advantage. It was part of the reason all of them worked hard not to exhibit the classic traits most people of their Flame type did.

But that involved _redirecting_ those impulses, working around them in some way or another. Just like Fon contained his reactions at minor annoyances and dealt physically with major ones instead of exploding verbally like most Storms, each of them had their own coping mechanisms.

Reborn wasn't loud and overbearing like most Suns, but he still was the center of attention more often than not.

Lal and Colonello were military through and through, where a calm disposition was the last thing any commanding officer wanted -and thus would have trained out of them-, but Fon would bet his next mission's pay that both of them remained clear-headed in any kind of conflict.

Viper was an extremely blunt person, but she still had the incredible imagination and cunning most Mists favored.

Verde was as far from simple as the Sun was from the Moon, but he could be incredibly single-minded and focused when on a project.

And yet Skull _never_ displayed any kind of "Cloudy" behavior. No patrolling, no flying into rages, no claiming of territory, not even _drifting_.

And while they could have reasoned that away, none of them were blind. Skull always looked unconcerned and resigned on their missions, no matter how south they went.

That, coupled with the ridiculous amount of Flame he possessed, told them a rather disturbuing story.

Skull was _used_ to things going wrong. He had seen enough that their frankly ridiculous missions were barely a blip on his radar and _not worth raging over_.

None of them had voiced it, but Fon was certain that all of them had been kind of terrified at the prospect of something eventually provoking Skull into a proper Rage.

Not just because of the sheer _scale_ such an event would have to be on, but because the _World's Strongest Cloud_ in a Rage was an image that rightly belonged in their nightmares.

They had just gotten a taste of it -and _yes_ , it certainly was as terrifying as they had feared- and soon they would see him properly unleash his rather horrifying full force.

(Which included _Magic_ -rather powerful Magic at that, if he read Jean's implications about a war and Skull's part on it correctly- as well as the most powerful Cloud Flames on Earth, because the world did love its overkill, apparentely)

Fon would normally jump at the chance to see Skull Rage safely, that is, at his back making sure nobody took advantage of the berserker-like single-mindedness most Clouds in a Rage exhibited if his friend hadn't found a way to work around it yet. Not only to catalogue his fighting style so he could dive out of the way if he ever found himself between Skull and his target in any eventual future Rage, but also to analyze his buttons and make sure they **never** got pressed again.

Unfortunately, that may no longer be a possibility.

Viper had informed them about her cousin's legendary luck. Even admitted to suspecting a Curse as the cause.

Fon would have believed the tales of his ancestors' exploits as one of the few powerful enough to curse entire familiy lines "May you Live in Interesting Times" a coincidence were it not for the one last detail that rounded up that particular story. The cursed family were apparentely _makers of pots_. From the far West.

Fon kind of wanted to whimper. Did Viper truly have to tell them that Skull was the last Potter? He would have been far happier not knowing.

He would like to tell himself that Skull would not be unreasonable about it, but...

Fon tried to imagine what living under that Curse would have been like and what kind of things Skull had done and suffered through in order to _survive_ it that left him with such a daunting amount of tells and conditioned reactions. Tells and reactions that Reborn and Colonello's combined efforts -on and off for _fourteen years_ \- hadn't managed to fix.

He was a dead man.

Maybe at least he could try to die protecting Skull's family? He'd be dead either way, but he'd be preventing the world from being destroyed by the _World's Strongest **Magical** Cloud's _grief-fuelled Rage.

* * *

"Stop laughing already, Skull! We need more information if we are going to help you take out those idiots, kora"

Colonello tried not to let his irritation show at Skull's flabbergasted expression. He knew the Cloud didn't mean it personally, no matter how _outraging_ it was to see him doubt that they would help him.

"What? You can't! You've never seen Magic in action, you guys don't know how to counter it..."

At least their combined deadpan stares were making him rightfully trail off. That was progress, no matter how small. Now that the lesson that _they didn't abandon their own_ seemed to have more-or-less sunk in, they could obtain more information.

Not that the people who attacked them seemed any kind of challenge -they had been _literally_ standing still as they attacked, for Christ's sake- but it was the principle of the thing.

Skull's family -his _godson-_ had been attacked, so they would deal out brutal retribution. If Skull left them something to teach a lesson to. Which, considering his friends' reaction of paving the way politically so he could unleash carnage undisturbed, didn't seem all that likely.

But they had a great opportunity to see how a completely new society operated and to pit their fighting style against their own, which would be a criminal waste to let go of, so they'd at least tag along.

If only because Skull had been clearly trying to show them how magicals fought -and probably showing off as well- and it'd be rude to ignore the effort.

The basics seemed to be wands and teleportation - _Portkey_ , they had called it, if he was not mistaken-, but there would obviously be other surprises out there. Like whatever a "metamorphmagus" was and what kind of abilities it granted to Skull's godson.

They were going to take care of their friends' family _properly_ , and that meant being able to navigate and fight on that world.

No matter how gross their practices seemed or how difficult it would be not to comment on the rampant inbreeding problem.

* * *

Colonello's words seemed to prompt Viper to say something too low for Aria to hear from where she was standing slightly apart from the group. Whatever it was she had said, Skull seemed conflicted about it, though the rest of the Arcobaleno seemed to have gotten more subtext from their facial expressions.

(Even having Reborn as a tutor could only go so far when analyzing the facial expressions of people that were so used to hiding their feelings)

Aria was feeling somewhat out of sorts with the whole situation, in all actuality. She was _ecstatic_ at the Curse being removed, of course. But everything else that had happened was very obviously part of Skull and Viper's personal life.

The existance of Magic was a discovery she would have normally been incredibly excited to explore, but she was very much aware that she had obtained the information on the context of Skull's old enemies attacking his family, and that made her feel like an intruder.

The others were obviously connecting dots and getting references that previously didn't make sense -or they thought had meant something else. But to Aria, it was all news. And she was very sharply aware of the fact that that was because she _didn't belong_.

She wasn't even sure if her mother being on her place would have made matters better or worse. She had known them better, but they also felt that they had been betrayed by her.

(When she was a child, Aria had wanted to reunite those people _who made mama sad_ and make them _understand_ how **inescapable** their visions truly were. The sheer _weight_ of having the fate of the world resting _literally_ on their shoulders and _knowing_ exactly what that meant. She hadn't, because her mother had asked her not to. Had wanted to spare them the knowledge. Wanted to respect their desire _not to know_ )

As things stood, though, Aria was the one who was there, feeling awkward and intruding. Intruding on the privacy of a Cloud was generally a pretty terrible idea, and while part of her wanted to know what was going on and help them deal with those people that threatened Skull's godson, she understood that she should probably arrange transportation and leave them to their plotting.

"You coming, Aria?"

Skull's voice broke through her thoughts, and the young Sky couldn't help gaping slightly.

"You want me to go with you?"

"Well... only if you want to. If you have other things to do..."

"Yes! Please. I'd appreciate it. Thank you" Not her most stellar example of the 'cool, collected and diplomatic' Donna attitude they had worked so hard to teach her, but she had been startled.

Clouds didn't appreciate nosy people, as a general rule. That Skull -and Viper, who could give any Cloud a run for their money on caginess- was allowing her in on his secrets was truly humbling. She knew all the Arcobaleno were fond of her to a certain extent, since they had been there for her after her mother's death. But being offered the same consideration as the rest of the group -when they had known and trusted each other for so much longer- was incredibly humbling.

Aria let out a carefully controlled breath -probably pointless, since they all would be able to see how much the show of trust had shaken her anyway- and recomposed herself. They still needed to go to the old cottage on the hill so Skull could use whatever a Pensieve was and explain things to them _properly_.

* * *

Skull looked at the Pensieve with a conflicted expression. It was somehow much more intimidating now than the first time he had seen one on Dumbledore's office, with the knowledge that he would be witnessing part of Voldemort's life when he was still Tom Riddle in it.

He knew, intelectually, that he was being ridiculous. Nothing they were about to see in there would surprise him, those were _his_ memories in the first place.

A small part him still wanted to hide under the table, though.

It wasn't fear at their reactions to Magic, or even at discovering how messed up Wizarding society was. He had already seen their reactions to both of those things, after all.

But he was still nervous. Not even Viper knew exactly what he had gone through. She had seen the _Prophet_ , of course, but she had believed maybe one word out of seven, like any sane woman would.

His friends and family were incredibly protective of his privacy, even more than Skull himself, which was really saying something. Of course, where Viper was concerned that only meant that she connected the dots on her own and became Concerned.

And a Concerned Viper could be terrifyingly subtle and efficient at making him confront his problems.

Which was why he appreciated the blunt manner with which she had asked him to use the Pensieve. Granted, she had said to do it 'so they could see the Wizarding World as it's explained to muggleborns and then how most people discover the way it actually works'. But they both knew that that was a load of dragon dung. He'd eat his helmet if Viper hadn't already worked out that he had been explained precisely spit.

Her real reason was, therefore, obviously to make him confront his issues with them as moral support. Which was thoughtful and kind of endearingly efficient of her, since they would _still_ get a pretty comprehensive understanding of the British Wizarding World that way.

His problem was that he could imagine their reactions pretty well. He _had_ eventually wised up to what Reborn and Colonello were doing, even if it had taken him more time than he would be comfortable with admitting. And while some part of himself accepted that he probably needed to hear them reaffirm the idea that what was done to him was _wrong_ , another part of him also dreaded the inevitable explosions.

He was a Gryffindor for a reason, though. So he put his wand to his temple -enjoying their startled faces maybe a little too much, as they had only seen wands used as weapons and were pretty clearly about two seconds from slapping his hand away- and took out a silvery string of memories. Then another. He paused for a moment, sighed -because they wouldn't be satisfied until they knew _everything_ once they even suspected what had happened and this way was just _faster_ \- and started dumping more and more memories until all of his Hogwart years were covered.

He studiously ignored Viper's smug and somewhat proud grin.

When he saw Aria's expression, though, he didn't bother containing his reaction and rolled his eyes. A pointed look and she was reaching for the Pensieve with unsure hands and a somewhat nervous smile.

Once they were all inside, the memories started playing. Of course, none of them reacted outwardly, and only Aria let her slightly overwhelmed expression show.

He didn't have any illusions that they were not cataloguing and analyzing every last detail, though. At least they didn't make a fuss about the way his relatives treated him on the morning of his eleventh birthday. He preferred to forget the Dursleys' very existence, in all honesty.

And then they saw the cupboard under the stairs.

* * *

Reborn ignored the explosion of noise that the _cupboard_ had warranted and instead swept the place for clues. He had an awful suspicion brewing on his gut.

(That suspicion was horrible and he prayed he was wrong, but at least it distracted him from memorizing those _pigs'_ identity and address. Unauthorized hits on civilians were frowned upon, and he needed to respect Skull's -Harry's- right to deal with them as he saw fit, even if he had a nasty suspicion that those _vermin_ would escape their dues)

After the tub of lard that called himself Vernon fled the house with all its ocupants in order to escape from the letters -which ended up being useless, as anyone with half a braincell could have told him-, a giant named Hagrid came to explain the Wizarding World to their baby Cloud.

And Reborn's suspicions were confirmed.

Reborn tilted his fedora to hide his closed eyes as he _fought_ the bile rising on his throat. Throwing up here would be rude, and Skull would probably take it the wrong way.

( _No wonder_ he had such a low self-esteem. Damn. **Number four Private Drive, Little Whining, Surrey.** That information was _carved_ on his brain now. He'd need every last shred of his self-control not to kill those wastes of flesh)

A rogue wizard had tried to kill Skull -Harry- when he was a baby and he had 'miraculously' survived. That was what Activated his Flames, or Reborn would eat his fedora.

Reborn played with the cuffs of his shirt to hide the trembling of his hands.

Flames were a manifestation of the soul. They were influenced by the personality, and the Flames in turn influenced the personality through certain instincts and impulses.

A baby would not have a completely formed personality, so the Flame that happened to be Primary at that point in time would be the one that Activated.

Clouds were rare even on the Mafia because the personality traits that were associated with them were discouraged in most cultures. Even the Cloudiest child in the world would try to change if he loved his parents and trusted their judgement. And that would in turn change his Flames, to the point his Primary could end up changing.

Even when the Mafia people wised up to this and tried to prevent it it was difficult, because overly willful children tended to be a nightmare and needed to be corrected.

Well, apparentely they had found the solution.

They just had to Activate their Flames when they were _goddamned **babies**_ and the Primary Flame would still be Cloud even as they were socialized with the complete opposite to their instinctive behaviour. An Active Flame couldn't change, after all.

Of course, this run the risk of the child self-destructing, but _who cared, **right?**_

Reborn let out a deep breath and spied Skull out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't really interested in Gringotts, even if the way those people managed their finances was probably important information. Viper probably had that covered already. In fact, her money was probably there, now that he thought about it.

He just couldn't wrench his thoughts away of the idea that Skull had survived _by the skin of his teeth_.

Reborn knew Clouds. He had worked with lots of them, because they were generally considered the strongest Elements, and when one reached a certain level of jobs those were the kind of people that were sent as 'companions'. Little Harry's first instinct when he started to be aware of the way he was treated in comparison with other kids would have been physical retaliation.

Considering the environment he was in, that would have ended _very_ badly. The fact that he had apparentely managed to redirect instincts he _didn't know he had_ so he became snarky instead was nothing short of a miracle.

(Well, no. No, it wasn't. It was actually most probably a product of being way too exahusted from the malnourishment and the never-ending "chores" to be able to raise a hand against them in protest. But Reborn was trying to _refrain_ from making the world a favour and eliminating those parasites, so he would do his best not to think too much about that)

Skull... Skull was probably unaware of it, Reborn realized with a sinking feeling of dread. He didn't know just how _close_ he had been to self-destructing in that environment.

(Or, most probably, he suspected and was doing his damn best not to connect the dots)

Skull hadn't been raised on the lore and facts about Flames that Mafia brats like him had known all their lives. He probably couldn't appreciate the sheer magnitude of the harm the Dursleys (almost) did to him.

At least it seemed that Magic had provided an outlet for his pent-up Flames, if he was reading Hagrid and Harry's conversation about Accidental Magic correctly.

In an environment in which anything 'strange' was severely discouraged, of course he never discovered his Flames. That added to instincts that just had to be going rabid would have become a grenade about to go off if the Flames hadn't been able to Multiply his Accidental Magic.

Reborn did not have enough information to know for sure if that was what had happened, but it made sense. Mantaining his body functional despite the **_abuse_** those _mars on the human species_ dished out had probably given his Flames something to do -but it was still not enough to explain the sheer amount of Flame Skull possessed, and judging by his expression when he put more and more memories on the bowl, Reborn was regretting having Leon so close at hand for the first time on his life.

Whenever his instincts rebelled, Harry's internal Flames probably Multiplied his Magic. At least, that was what Reborn was going to assume, because from the way they were talking, Acciental Magic was a natural experience and Reborn didn't want to imagine what would have happened if Harry had tried to contain it as his 'guardians' would have undoubtedly encouraged him to do.


	11. Lal and strength

Colonello was very much **_not_** amused.

He remembered the first Halloween _Il Prescelti Sette_ had spent together, before the Curse and before he joined the group. All of them had fallen sick after Viper's warning about her cousin's 'inescapable' bad luck on that day. He had found it amusing at the time.

He had also found it funny when he lost three hours getting through Verde's absolutely paranoid defenses the next morning after it became clear that none of them were in any condition to get up. The end result had been the whole group being incredibly hungry thanks to their own precautions, which had startled a laugh out of him.

A groggy and miserable-looking Skull dragging himself out of bed in order to make lunch because 'Colonello's cooking should be classified as a war crime' had been met with a laugh too.

(And a bit of grumbling, because he only _needed_ to know how to survive in the wild and heat pre-packaged meals to function, so there really had been no reason for him to learn how to cook, but he had still tried his best, _dammit_ )

After discovering how utterly _heavenly_ Skull's dishes were, Colonello had tried to joke that the Cloud should be the one to cook from then on 'to earn his keep'. His expression then had wiped the amusement from his face, and had in fact been what convinced him to try and help the walking contradiction of a 'civilian'.

At least now Colonello had his answer about the origin of the _wretched_ , broken expression Skull had worn then.

It also handily explained why he had seemed so uncomfortable with their praise. Colonello tried not to wonder if the reason was that cooking specifically was linked to bad memories or if he was really that unaccustomed to positive attention.

None of them had missed his expression when putting the memories in the Pensieve. It was probably worse than 'simple' childhood trauma. Colonello did his best not to speculate. He was already tenser than was advisable, and they would get their answers soon enough anyway.

(He just hoped he'd be able to contain his reaction)

* * *

Lal spied Colonello out of the corner of her eye even as she gave most of her attention to the memories. It was somewhat startling how much all of them (herself included) were affected by what had happened to their Cloud.

The _cupboard_ had certainly been outraging, but it hadn't even been part of her worst speculations. Lal couldn't speak for the rest of them, but before going in she had been almost certain that Skull had suffered physical abuse.

Of course, that possibility wasn't discounted just because he didn't _show_ it to them, but judging by his grimace and the number of memories he dumped on the bowl, she was pretty sure there was another reason -probably multiple reasons- for his physical tells.

Not that the possibility of him suffering physically when he was in his teens as oppossed to childhood was necessarily _better_ , but it tended to leave fewer mental scars.

Colonello, though, would probably be unable to see the silver lining in all of this. He had been a soldier through and through, and he was used to helping his comrades through trauma. A big brother type to the T.

He had gotten good enough at it that it hadn't been unusual for the higher ups to send the recruits with bad pasts to his unit. He _thrived_ on helping his comrades.

Lal, by contrast, had been more of an special ops member. She was used to comrades with experience, veterans. People that had internalized their issues and learned to either accept them or work around them.

She knew that sometimes there was no helping someone.

From the beginning, she had known that Skull was like that. Battered, beaten down and a little bit broken. But also functional. With enough strength left to fight back again and again and _again_ against anyone that tried to break him further.

But not _quite_ enough strength left to try and repair the damage that had already been done.

(She had never breathed a word of those musings to Colonello. Hadn't even hinted at it in front of Reborn, or Viper, or any of the others. She had followed their lead on their schemes to try and help their teammate. Even when Colonello had insisted that they should _really_ ham up their appreciation of Skull's cooking and ask for it literally on bended knee. She'd never even _thought_ that he might be already beyond help when on Skull's presence. Lal might not be much of an optimist, but she'd never censor their attempts to help one of their own. And the shadows lurking around Skull's expression _were_ chased out, little by little. Even if the progress was slow and it would likely never really end, none of them would ever stop trying)

Lal carefully controlled her breathing. She was pretty sure that she would need all of her calm to get through the whole recollection. It was better to be prepared to contain herself for a long time. This would be a marathon, not a sprint.

Even as she firmed her mental discipline, she could see that the rest were still struggling with their first reactions.

(Colonello especially. She could almost hear the shout of _That's **my** baby brother! _ on his thoughts)

No matter what they liked to say and joke about, the idea of Skull as weak had never really stuck.

Inexperienced, maybe. Ridiculous, lots of times. But weak, _vulnerable_? That was as much of an alien concept as Fon in an uncontrolled rage, Viper giving information away for free or Verde being illogical.

All of them were used to being in control, strong and steady with self-assurance and experience. Even if some (lots) of the time that was a front, they were used to thinking of each other as capable. People that would come out of just about any situation no matter what, because all of them were just too stubborn to die.

Seeing little Harry being led by the nose, ignorant and helpless in the middle of a situation where he lacked the information and resources to even know which questions to ask was _jarring_.

Lal had been prepared, though. Perhaps better than any of them.

(Not that she'd ever think of all the times her fellow soldiers had regressed to similar states on particularly helpless situations in the field as a _good_ thing, no matter what the experience was helping her with)

So she watched. She catalogued each detail with meticulous care. The analysis could come later, they didn't have enough information to truly process the data right now. They would need to have a long talk afterwards, compare notes and theories.

Skull -and, if she didn't miss her guess, Viper- would likely want to go wreck havoc upon whoever had taken Teddy right after finishing the viewing of the memories. Which meant that they would need to wait until that was done before they could share their impressions and theories.

That was unfortunate, especially considering Reborn's studious fading on the background. Lal was pretty sure that he already had some kind of theory. Judging by the utter stillness of his Flames and the relaxed-seeming posture he had adopted -he looked almost _civilian_ in his casualness-, it was probably bad. _Really_ bad.

And probably accurate. Reborn was rarely wrong when analyzing a situation, and he had been almost as invested on Skull's recovery as Colonello.

(Lal suspected a case of kindred spirits there. The hitman's past was mysterious, but there weren't a lot of options and she was pretty sure that all of them held similar suspicions. No matter how much Skull had protested, all of them had seen how comfortable the two were with each other, under all the bluster and childish spats)

She'd love to say that the information she was collecting would at least give them a few targets -apart from the _wastes of air_ that nominally raised Harry- to take out their anger on, but...

Lal knew Clouds. And she knew soldiers. Most of all, she knew traumatized people who had managed to come out of the other end more-or-less whole, if still marked for life.

She'd bet her next mission's pay that there would be no targets left after they were done with the morons that kidnapped Skull's godson. Viper would have beat them all to it even if Skull hadn't taken care of them himself.

For all that she seemed impassive, Viper was a very passionate woman about taking care of what was hers. Inconsequential matters such as 'boundaries' or 'privacy' wouldn't have deterred her.

(Lal hadn't known she was _that_ sentimental until she heard the kid's casual 'Auntie Lulu' and, while she found it adorable, she was _not_ calling her any variation thereof. Viper's idea of appropiate force for retaliation against petty pranks differed greatly from Lal's. It also, chillingly, was apparently a family trait. Colonello was on his own if he ever chose to tease her over the nickname)

* * *

Viper released a slow, careful breath when their teammates started to pull themselves together again. Aria seemed to still be horrified, but the rest were relaxing, at least in appearence. That was important.

Skull probably understood, intelectually, that they were outraged _for_ him, but explosions of anger in his immediate vicinity still left him uncomfortable. Viper hoped that all of them -herself included, because there were _a lot_ of things she hadn't known even just on the first few minutes- managed to keep themselves in check for the rest of the viewing.

They would probably be able to watch it all with perfect poker faces if they had thought of it as a mission, but they had known each other too long to keep up appearences when there was no obvious reason to. Their default state among each other was actually _relaxed_.

And that meant more than a thousand missions together.

Cagey bastards like them didn't let their guards down among just anyone. Being as open as they were among each other was the height of trust in the mafia. The masks they had all worn at the beginning had been chipped little by little over the years, to the point they rarely felt the need to temper their reactions to anything.

The fact that that same unguardedness was making Skull uncomfortable was _infuriating_.

And Viper couldn't even signal them to tone it down without him realizing, which would just fan the flames of his thrice-damned guilt complex.

It wouldn't matter that Skull was feeling unsettled out of subconscious responses caused by conditioning, he'd still perceive it as a personal failure. Or as himself being unreasonable, or infringing on their right to express themselves freely.

(Magical Britain's tendency towards victim-blaming was one of the many, many reasons she had opened a bottle of champagne after the war was over and the final tally of old bloodlines that became extinct was published)

Viper could do nothing but gnash her teeth and seethe in silence, though. So she just promised herself time alone with the rest of Teddy's abductors when they finally went to confront them.

She'd make sure to take her frustrations out on them and to be extra nasty to the ones who escaped Britain. It shouldn't be hard to find at least a couple of them. Death Eaters were notorious cowards and Britain's pathetic excuse for law enforcement was a joke, after all.

In the meantime, she'd take comfort on the Arcobaleno's restraint. They were all quick on the uptake, emotionally compromised or not. Viper was somewhat proud of how fast they caught on and schooled their expressions. Not that Skull wouldn't be able to tell they were upset anyway, but the connection between 'people who are upset in my general vicinity - I did something wrong' wasn't quite so visceral when they were controlling themselves instead of shouting or shaking fists.

Even if they clearly wanted to go back to emotinal displays after seeing the absolutely unacceptable behaviour of the teachers. Student safety was more assured in _Mafia Academy_. At least duels there were regulated instead of letting blood feuds continue on uninpeded in the students' free time.

Getting challenged so they'd be caught after curfew instead of fighting for real was literally the best case scenario, and Viper felt her eye twitch when they ran into the three-headed dog despite their 'lucky break'. She was dragging her cousin to a curse-breaker if it was the last thing she did. That luck was simply not natural.

The years passed surprisingly quickly -despite Verde's odd wheezes at the mentions of Alchemy-, for all that Skull had evidently included only what he felt was 'relevant' information.

(The psychological and social pressure on second year, the hellish summer between the first and second years and the steadily mounting terror during third year were skipped. Viper would have been more put out by that fact if she wasn't so certain that their teammates had caught the subtext anyway. She was still having another talk with her cousin about how his mental state _was_ relevant and important for all of them just in case)

* * *

Verde concentrated in hiding the agitation of his Flames. The last thing he needed was Skull taking his irritation -anger _fury_ \- the wrong way.

(It was also a nice distraction from the low simmering in his gut)

The worst part was that the complete _braindead **neanderthals**_ that had given his teammate so many lingering psychological issues hadn't even done it on purpose. Though Verde didn't doubt they would have, had they had the understanding necessary to cause them consciously.

The so-called _responsible_ adults of Skull's life when he went by Harry had played merry hell with his instincts in a way that would have been classified as 'dehumanazing treatment' on the Mafia. And it was all a product of the most toxic, stagnant society Verde had ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

A lack of structured and competent authorities coupled with sensibilities stuck on the victorian era had made that horrifying mess they called a society into a breeding ground for corruption and persecution. Worse, they had become like that while wielding mind-altering powers _when they didn't have the first clue about how the mind worked_.

Verde considered it a testament to their utter incompetence that they hadn't caused a lot more bloodshed in the 'normal' society. It was a sad state of affairs indeed when the only reason a society didn't implode was that the populace was too dumb to revolt.

Which didn't in any way mean that there was no suffering there, of course. Young Harry could attest to that. In spades.

Beyond the complete incompetence the people who worked in Hogwarts -he refused to award them the title of 'Teachers'- displayed when they didn't realize the _very obvious, very visible_ signs of abuse on their _most obvious and visible_ student, Skull's Flame type exacerbated all of his problems by a considerable factor.

Caging a Cloud was a bad idea. That was Mafia 101, the most basic of the basics.

Generally, the ones who gave that helpful advice (along with the usual punch to whoever had been Stupid enough to even consider it) were thinking about the truly spectacular explosions a ticked off Cloud could cause if they felt caged.

People didn't tend to consider the averse effects feeling trapped had in a Cloud. Their instincts required freedom more than anyone else's, and infringing on that freedom left them adrift and antsy. Little Harry's situation was bad enough, but going to Hogwarts right on the onset of puberty, _when his instincts would be experiencing a great increase and strengthening_ had been like adding rocket fuel to a forest fire.

He had found an 'escape' that looked wonderful and safe at first. Then it had become uninviting and hostile by turns, all of it in much greater intensity than anything he had ever experienced. The worst part was that the switching between the two extremes had not stopped at any point _during the period in his life in which stability was most crucial to his development_.

Verde didn't know if he should be extremely impressed with Skull or drag him to therapy by the ear. No wonder nothing Reborn and Colonello cooked up ever seemed to make a noticeable difference.

But of course, the extremely impressive teetering _right_ on the edge of self-destruction they managed to force their Cloud into would not be all.

No, because that would be too easy. Fourth year started and they brought two new schools to the grounds. And of course, introducing strangers that would read 'intruders' to Harry's fledging instincts and their tenuous claim on Hogwarts as Territory was not everything _either_.

They went and made him compete in life-or-death tasks right alongside a charismatic, kind and _so very obviously Sky_ older student.

Verde forced himself to keep his eyes open. Cedric Diggory was obviously a Sky, obviously strong and well-liked and obviously getting attached to the younger, slightly standoffish and wary Cloud. The wary, slightly standoffish Cloud that was obviously getting attached as well, to the point he gave him information about the First Task.

That was a fledging Guardian Bond like the Sun rose in the East.

(Verde kind of wanted to smack his face at the 'fair play' line. Harry had broken rules left and right from minute one in Hogwarts and had had zero problems making use of any resource to ensure his and his friends' safety until then. He tried not to wonder if Skull had ever connected the dots about his uncharacteristic helpfulness toward Cedric once he entered the Mafia and discovered what Guardian Bonds were)

The worst part was that Verde could see it working. Cedric was clearly powerful if his Sky Charisma had ensnared the entirety of Hufflepuf House to the point they were hostile to his 'competition', so it wasn't all that farfetched to think that he could form a full Bond with Skull.

Of course, that was another point in favor of his theory. After all, Skull's Sky would have to be as powerful as him _at least_.

For all of Luce's faith in 'the way Things were Meant to Be', Verde didn't doubt that she would have made sure someone else got the Sky Pacifier if there had been other candidates, for Aria's sake if nothing else.

So when the two Hogwarts champions were port-keyed away to a graveyard and Cedric died Verde simply sighed and cursed his always-accurate thought processes.

Watching that summer was... trying. For all that Verde could see Skull right there by their side, hale and healthy and obviously _alive_... Lots of newly minted Guardians had committed suicide after their Skies died. The fact that Harry was back in what he considered a prison certainly didn't help.

(The whisper of 'Immortal Skull' in his mind made him shudder with the possibilities, because _clearly_ there was a reason for the monicker, but thankfully it seemed he was wrong for once. Verde had never been so glad to have a theory disproved)

Thankfully, he was taken away from that toxic environment to... well, not somewhere all that better, honestly, but at least it seemed to calm his rebelling instincts enough that he gave voice to his grievances instead of mantaining the previous -really worrying- internalization of his feelings.

Venting was a really good sign, actually, since it meant that he finally felt safe enough to explode in front of people. Of course, the reactions he received were not even remotely encouraging, _especially because Harry had **lots** of legitimate causes to rant_.

But at this point Verde just gritted his teeth against the incoming headache -he was going to make a campaign to take custody away from all the unfit adults of the magical enclaves, he swore he would- and took his silver lining.


	12. Fon and remorse

Fon was having trouble breathing. Technically, he was 'just' having trouble controlling his breathing so he didn't give away how he was feeling, but considering he was pretty sure that if he let up on his very conscious and measured breaths he'd start to hyperventilate, he figured the point was pretty moot.

He faintly wondered if he had done something lately to anger the Powers that governed the Universe. Surely being part of the stabilizing agents that prevented that same Universe from imploding should give him more leeway than this?

This whole situation was like a horrifying nightmare come true. Not only was he witnessing one of his best friends suffer unspeakable torments _as a child_ while being unable to do anything about it, but he was the only one who knew that it was at least partially his fault.

Not in the sense that he would have _ever_ willingly contributed to his friend's suffering, of course. But his family line had been the one to curse Skull's. And, clearly, that was one powerful curse.

Considering how horribly his comrade had been treated, Fon wasn't sure if he would actually prefer an anger-fuelled explosion when he actually came clean about his ancestors' exploits. If Skull actually forgave him for his family's part on those hellish years, Fon was pretty sure he'd only be able to taste ash and bile from then on.

(Would it even be a genuine reaction or just the way his friend had been _conditioned_ to respond by those people? He'd never even dreamed he'd ever have to wonder at how much someone's personality was their own and what was the product of years of brainwashing, and he couldn't be more horrified at the reality of the situation)

It wasn't even a conscious effort. All of those people, who looked up to _a child_ and burdened him with judgement and expectations were _moulding_ him into what they wanted. And nobody, much less young Harry, had noticed.

(Weak, simpering masses, he thought uncharitably. Putting all their hopes and expectations on an abused child and then discarding him when he no longer conformed to their impossible standards. Despicable)

Fon suppressed a flinch when the next memories started and they were shown Skull's first experiences in dating. This confirmed it. He, consciously or not, was _still_ acting according to what the public had wanted of him.

He hadn't shown them the mental anguish from the summers save for the barest of mentions. Same with the mounting terror all of them could infer he must have felt all throughout his third year. But his first girlfriend and the particulars of their realtionship featured prominently.

Exactly what those people would be interested in.

It was likely something he didn't even realize he had done, especially since there were so many other issues that would make those memories seem incredibly poignant to Skull.

(Two Guardians seeking comfort in any echoes of their departed Sky they could find -i.e. each other- was hardly uncommon, though it made him hurt for both Harry and Cho, who had had no way of knowing that what they had felt was not actually attraction for each other)

But this was at least confirmation of Fon's suspicions regarding their Cloud's early life. It was an honestly easy to miss detail in the whirlwind of _outraging_ treatment he had suffered, but just as insidious as the public constantly demanding things from him.

Harry had not had any privacy. And he was not used to it now.

It was a very counterintuitive notion considering how much he'd tried to obscure himself from the beginning and how intensely private most Clouds tended to be, but this right here gave Fon all the proof he needed.

From a cupboard anyone could -and did- open at their leisure, to other people constantly telling him things about his own family, finances or status, to rumors following wherever he went even to the point of making front-page news on the papers _regularly_ for the most banal reasons, he had never had a single boundary respected.

So it just stood to reason that he had never developed any.

And in what was becoming an increasingly distressing trend, his Flame type had made his problems _worse_. Because Clouds tended towards introverted personality types, if they did not straight-up hate human contact. So he would have known that there was _something_ that registered as uncomfortable with his instincts, but with no way of knowing what the difference was between the way his privacy was treated and anyone else's, those feelings would just manifest as snappish and angry behaviour.

Which, considering the incredibly judgemental society he was a part of, would only invite even more prying into his business. Fon considered it a mark of his friend's resilience that he had even been able to become a functional adult at all.

Of course, that did not mean that his issues were anywhere near resolved. Which left them with an uncomfortably close look to their friend's early love life, since Skull had likely never actually understood that there were levels to trust, and that taking someone into his confidence didn't mean that he _had_ to show them every part of himself, including his most intimate thoughts and feelings.

At least he apparentely recognized that strangers had _no_ right to any part of his life, which was encouraging. The problem likely was that he still believed that close friends and family warranted full disclosure.

It was easy to see how he'd make that mistake, too. Hermione -who'd have thought that Jean's real name would actually be _less_ believable than her codename- and Ron were shaping up to become the only real family Harry would know until he became Skull and met Viper.

(Even if there were issues there under the surface too. Fon would pray they wouldn't be realized, but he understood by now how all-encompassing his ancerstors' curses were)

Since his friends/surrogate family would share _everything_ with him, it wouldn't seem odd to them that he reciprocated. And Viper was an information specialist, so she wouldn't ask, likely believing -especially with how well-documented every step he took on that world had been- that she already knew everything of importance.

(Her face right now told them quite clearly that that had **not** been the case, and that she didn't know whether to thank or curse the fact that his upbringing's encouraging of passiveness and his Cloud Instincts had made him reluctant to share unless someone asked)

This was a truly vexing situation, because they had been the ones who _asked_. Trying to make him understand that he could have withheld information without making him automatically assume that they were uninterested in his life was going to be hard. Making it clear that he could come to them to share and work through his trauma without waiting for them to ask was going to be harder, if they succeeded at all.

* * *

Reborn watched dispassionately as what had been apparentely nicknamed "the Golden Trio" left the safety of Hogwarts when the threats on the horizon started to take a more tangible shape. This right here would be the deciding factor for how much of a clusterfuck the war would be, and he couldn't afford to let his emotions get the better of him if he wanted to ascertain how many enemies still lurked waiting for another opportunity on Skull and his family.

(Personally, he was somewhat surprised that they hadn't had to flee sooner. What they did to 'Umbitch' had been entirely warranted, but judging by their Ministry's track record he would have expected retaliation, no matter how much proof of her criminal behaviour they had. Then again, he suppossed that _nobody_ could really like that toad)

A slight flattening of his mouth was his only outward reaction when the one named Ron left the group, but inside he was sighing in resignation. It was a pretty inevitable outcome, all things considered, but it was still disheartening. Even if at the time Harry had been taken off guard, that reaction was a direct result of his own actions.

He had been protecting his friends from day one, always  being the one to venture into the unknown without them. As a result, neither of his friends had seen real combat. Ron might have gotten knocked unconscious by a life-sized chess piece on their first year, but that had been a calculated risk against an inanimate object that couldn't think for itself. Certainly not the same level of terror a real enemy inspired.

On second year he had experienced the build-up to a confrontation and fear for his family and friends, but that was still not the same as a life or death battle. Third year, they turned out not to have been in any danger in the first place when the time for confrontation came. Fourth year he was straight-up uninvolved. Fifth year none of the threats he received were actually realized, and he wasn't the main target anyway. Sixth year was probably the calmest on their whole school experience, which was depressing in the extreme.

By contrast, Harry had had his first kill at eleven -which gave even _him_ pause, because Renato Sinclair hadn't been bloodied until he reached thirteeen _and he had been groomed to be a hitman_ \- with no counseling afterwards. At twelve, he had faced a legendary monster the size of a particularly large school bus with a sword he had no idea how to use. The following years didn't get any better.

Likely, Harry hadn't even realized what was wrong with that picture. He had been so used to being hailed as a 'hero', and the notion that fighting any and all unreasonably powerful 'evils' that attacked the school was _his job_ was so ingrained at that point that he wouldn't even register that what he had gone through was _not_ normal or acceptable. The idea that one or both of his friends had not truly understood the stakes and might get cold feet upon discovering what 'being a hero' actually entailed was probably a foreign notion to him.

Of course, that brought up the issue that he had either been groomed to be a sacrificial pawn that would consider it his 'duty' to fight for anyone and everyone even at the cost of his own life, or that his upbringing had given him such a low self-esteem that he actually subconsciously protected his friends even at the cost of his own life, exacerbated by the fact that his Cloud Instincts would encourage him to be protective of those he considered 'his'. Though the most likely explanation was in some form of combination of the two.

The cause didn't matter much, anyway. The real problem was that he was shaping up to develop a truly monstruous martyr complex. And considering how intensely suspicious it was that everyone around him felt reluctant to share the little intel they _did_ have with Harry, despite everyone clearly believing he would have to end the war on his own in some way...

There was clearly a reason for the monicker of 'Immortal'. And Reborn would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling apprehensive at discovering what it was.

(Though the reason might just be for the amount of times Harry had escaped death through sheer blind luck after being left to muddle through unspeakable dangers by himself by the _adults_ of his life. Not setting fire to the magical enclaves after they were done with the probable-Death-Eater-remnants that had kidnapped Skull's godson was going to be an exercise in restraint for all of them)

Reborn _did_ give Ron some reluctant credit when he came back, though. A child that had lived a somewhat sheltered life as he had realizing the true scope of a war most of the people around him were in denial of was no small thing. And his aid and loyalty would be all the more valuable if he was truly comitted and understanding of the severity of the situation. Though Reborn did wonder if the kid was back for good, considering the incredibly rigid moral code his mother had instilled on him, especially in regards to killing.

(He also tried not to wonder at Harry's seemingly imperturbable countenance. Either he hadn't realized yet that there was no way to win a war without killing _either_ or he truly had not been shaken after Quirrel. Being told over more than a decade that his parents had been worthless and their deaths a benefit didn't seem to have made a dent in his eagerness to learn things about them, but that didn't mean that young Harry hadn't taken home lessons from other parts of those statements. Reborn wasn't touching _that_ particular issue with a ten-foot pole. And he was a hitman, anyway. Any overtures in that avenue would seem either mocking or hypocritical coming from him)

Not that they seemed to be doing much in the way of actual combat, surprisingly. He absently wondered if those children had even realized at the time that hunting down and destroying those so-called 'horcruxes' would mean the death of a human being. Though they might just think that Voldemort didn't count as human anymore. Reborn was honestly not sure which notion was more troubling.

It really was ironic bordering on the absurd that a hitman would be reflecting so much on the morals of dehumanizing enemies versus killing them with full understanding of the implications and consequences of such an act, but Reborn had learned not to underestimate the levels of irreverence and Chaos his life could reach with absolutely no notice a long time ago.

Though he was not so lost in introspection that he missed the incredibly impressive burst of Cloud Flame Harry let on while being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. He couldn't quite help his proud grin at the sight. Outside manifestation of Flames without a focus was really impressive, and it would seem his Instincts were sitting up and taking notice as well. He'd find it much easier to consciously use and control his Flame from then on too. They had probably just witnessed the beginning of his transition into Skull.

* * *

Lal's left eyelid was twitching. She could feel it, she was pretty sure everyone around her could see it, and she could do nothing about it.

She was just so _angry_.

She had thought that she'd been prepared for anything when they started viewing the memories. She had steeled herself for anything from neglect to straight up torture, both of which -and everything in between- had been delivered.

What she hadn't counted on was the sheer levels of **stupidity** she'd have to endure.

This wasn't malicious calculation from an enemy, but the sheer _incompetence_ of **allies**. And that incompetence was the biggest threat to Skull and his friends' survival.

They had no intel, no resources, no contacts, no experience, **no goddamned idea of what they were doing**.

But the simple fact that they were part of the few people who were **not** in denial over the war on their doorstep meant that they were some of the more qualified people to deal with it.

Lal had been a special ops member. She could grudgingly accept that most of the adult members of the Order of the Phoenix were too exposed to the public through their jobs to just up and leave on a secret mission. Harry, Hermione and Ron were on the verge of their majority, so it wasn't like sending them on a retrieval mission was terribly unreasonable, especially considering the experience they had with threats to their lives. It was those experiences she took issue in, but that was another matter entirely.

(Molly Weasley and Remus Lupin had no excuse on Lal's mind. Neither of them would be missed if they disappeared discreetely, and it wasn't like they couldn't come back to their base between each retrieval for funds, resources and to let the rest of the group know of their progress. Leaving pre-prepared meals at home if Molly's family was truly so abysmal at taking care of themselves and checking a calendar wasn't **so damn hard** )

What truly **enraged** Lal about this situation was that the teens were completely alone and _they didn't have all the intel_. In their efforts to 'protect' the children, those suppossedly responsible adults had left them without the tools needed to protect themselves. Even the little combat training they had had been procured by themselves!

Sending them into hiding was probably necessary, but there were hundreds of better alternatives than sending them into a dangerous mission in which they'd have to go completely dark. That was madness. They could have sent them overseas, or hid them under the suppossedly impenetrable wards of the Black home, or any number of alternatives that didn't imply them cutting contact completely.

(Lal didn't give a crap if that had suppossedly been their initiative. It was clear that Dumbledore had been aiming for that result from the beginning with his ridiculous belief on a _prophecy_ of all stupid things. And they wouldn't have had to do it if the adults around them showed a little initiative for once in their lives and _used_ the damn intel they had)

Lal felt the twitching on her eyelid getting worse when they reached the 'Final Battle'. She could feel her hands start twtiching as well with the _longing_ for a sniper rifle. She had always thought that grand gestures like an army that consisted of _each and every one_ of the enemy's operatives, with the leader nice and exposed at the head was something that only happened in movies.

A good explosive to the center of that _idiotically tight_ formation and goodbye to the 'greatest threat' to Wizarding Britain.

Lal could feel the urge to facepalm at the defendants' reaction to _meet them head on_. This was so beyond stupid it had completely bypassed pathetic and gone straight into 'let's hope they all kill each other so they don't contaminate the gene pool any more' territory.

(Lal was seriously straining with the effort not to shout at the sheer idiocy. If they were going to be stuck on the Middle Ages the least they could do was actually _use_ Middle Ages tactics. A couple of those conveniently big cauldrons full of boiling oil being tossed from the top of the towers and Voldemort's oh-so-scary 'army' would have been done for)

All of those thoughts -along with her breath and that bothersome twtiching- stopped abruptly at the revelation that Harry had been a horcrux himself.

(It would seem there was actually a semi-reasonable reason why nobody had wanted to tell the children everything. Fancy that)

The rage that had been steadily growing as they watched the memories abruptly came back tenfold as Lal connected the dots. Harry hadn't been conditioned 'just' to be a good 'Golden boy, saviour and soldier'. Those _traitors_ had wanted a **martyr**.

She could feel the Arcobaleno around her expanding their presence through the rage on their Flames even as she felt herself becoming numb. They all knew what Harry would have chosen.

(And almost hidden from her senses, Skull's Flames contracted and hid, tinged with shame and old pain)

Lal didn't avert her eyes when she saw her friend calling to the spirits of his family and talking to them, no matter how much it pained her. She wouldn't dream of turning her back on his suffering, even as she hurted both for what he had been through and for the implications of his showing them something so intimate.

(Conditioning, _brainwashing_ , trauma, her mind whispered. There were so many things Skull still needed to work through, no matter how successful he was at pretending to be fine)

Lal was surprised when they found themselves on King's Cross and would admit -grudgingly, and only to herself- that she almost gave into the impulse to attack Dumbledore when she saw him there, talking to the seventeen-year-old he had sent to his death as if he had done nothing wrong.

The following conversation... didn't make much sense to Lal. She caught the gist of it and was glad when she saw Harry breathing again back in the 'real' world, but she couldn't really make heads or tails of it. At least Verde's odd keening sound let her know she wasn't the only one whose brain had broken. Or he had just had an epiphany on the way the world worked. It was really a fifty-fifty chance with him.

The death of the wanna-be dictator was soon after that, at least, and the rest of the memories were less eventful.

The conversation with his friends before he left in order to travel and the creation of Skull were a welcome reprieve after that.

Even if the fact that Skull actually _hadn't_ realized that he had Flames until Checkerface approached him was what finally broke her composure and made her facepalm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that Lambo and I-Pin are suppossed to be hitmen at five, but since the moment any competent adults got wind of their situation (i.e, Reborn for Lambo and Fon for I-Pin) they put a stop to that, and that I'm half convinced that Lambo's situation was a set-up so he could meet Tsuna and become his Lightning Guardian from the beginning, I've made it so non-insane families don't make their assassins kill until their teens in this AU.


	13. Colonello and faith

Skull exited the memories and immediately started looking for escape routes. He had known that his friends wouldn't be happy with... practically _anything_ that had happened to him before meeting them, but he hadn't expected the sheer levels of rage they were displaying. He was suddenly very glad they had some convenient targets located and ready to let their anger out on.

(Bless Hermione and her thorough nature. There was a map and a letter already on the table, even though Skull was sure the viewing of the memories couldn't have taken them more than a couple of hours)

With any luck they could have a nice time of flattening some idiots for old time's sake and afterwards they'd be tired enough that they wouldn't bring the memories up ever again.

His plans were quite thoroughly derailed when Skull suddenly found himself in a chokehold from Reborn. No... not a chokehold, he realized with mingled dread and embarrassment, a _hug_.

The World's Greatest Hitman and badass extraordinaire, _Reborn_ , was _hugging_ him.

Skull took a second to wonder if maybe the emotional impact of the memories had been great enough that he had passed out and was now in the middle of one of the weirdest dreams of his life.

But, no -and that was definetely a blush creeping up his cheeks-, no dream could replicate the sensation of all the Arcobaleno -even Aria- reaching towards him both physically and with their Flames.

He was enveloped in warmth and affection like a bloody baby, and he couldn't even protest because his own Flames -those traitorous things- were reaching back and _clinging_ embarrassingly to them.

"We have a _lot_ to talk about after we dispatch those morons" Reborn's eyes and voice were somehow both firm and gentle in a way Skull had never heard before, so he just buried his burning face back in Reborn's shoulder and nodded. _Anything_ to make this horribly mortifying moment end.

(He resolutely ignored his Flames clinging even more desperately to the others' in response to that sentiment)

Mercifully, it seemed he wasn't the only one who couldn't take much more of the mushy moment, as Verde let out a groan and started ranting.

"They are so _stupid_! How can _anyone_ be that stupid?! They shouldn't even be _biologically_ _viable_! They wield powers beyond comprehension and they use them to create a society permanently in the verge of self-destruction! They don't even understand how their powers _work_!"

"Wait, what?" Skull blurted out stupidly.

"Belief. and. power" Verde bit out, looking desperate for someone to understand what to him was so obvious. "Those are the only limits to so-called Magic. There is no need for incantations, fancy wand movements or _those sticks_. The whole society believes something, that something happens. That's why they have time travel but can only use it to create paradoxes. That's why Slytherins are stereotypically evil, _that's why Magic's 'rules' are inconsistent and unreliable_. Because there are no rules at all!"

Verde was panting by the end, and Skull was somewhat dumbfounded. He'd love to rebuke that, but he had survived the Killing Curse. Twice. Verde had a point about Magic's rules being unreliable and inconsistent.

(He wondered for a moment how come someone as brilliant as Hermione hadn't realized, but he remembered a conversation with her about how wizards didn't use logic at all. Had the subconscious beliefs of that society warped _their own_ perceptions? It was quite a chilling idea, but looking now upon those memories he had thought of lots of things he could have done better, and while part of that might be hindsight and new experiences coloring his vision, hadn't he been thinking that both he and his friends had been behaving somewhat irrationally? Food for thought)

He set aside his musings for later. _That_ was a conversation he had no problem revisiting at a later time. Hermione would have a field day, he was sure. It was certain to prove interesting when those two got together to discuss Magic theory, even if Skull was not completely positive he'd be able to follow everything they said.

He was about to suggest they should get going when Fon stepped up with a very... _contrite_ expression. Skull barely had time to fear he was about to get condolences for his life previous to meeting the Arcobaleno when he started talking.

"I have a... confession to make"

Skull blinked. That seemed kind of out of nowhere. Fon continued talking before he could wonder much more.

"My family... used to be wizards" A tight expression and fisted hands. Whatever this was, it affected Fon really deeply "I didn't believe the stories at first... thought them legends and nothing more." A shaky sigh. Skull was officially starting to freak out "But then I saw Magic in front of me and thought the tales passed down on my clan might be more than fanciful retellings of our history. Might be actually... accurate" Fon suddenly seemed unable to meet his eyes. Skull wondered what Potter Luck had done _now_ "Our mages were notorious for being powerful. Especially at casting curses. Cursing entire family lines was the pinnacle of our clan's _abilities_. Our **pride** " Fon sounded downright hateful when he said that. Skull's bad feeling intensified "The last family line we cursed 'May you Live in Interesting Times' was from the far West" And finally Fon was looking at him again, though still with that incredibly guilty expression "Their name didn't survive the centuries, but we translated it as _makers of pots_. Or Potterers"

Skull blinked again. That was anticlimatic.

"So? That wasn't your fault"

Fon's expression _crumpled_. Skull was officially back to freaking out.

* * *

Viper was torn between laughing hysterically and repeatedly slamming her head against a wall. At least this confirmed her suspicions about her cousin being under the effects of a curse.

 _The world's most famous curse_ , in fact. Because Skull -and his family, apparentely- didn't do anthing by halves. Though on the bright side, getting rid of it would be much easier now that she knew what they were up against.

Her musings on ways to counteract it came to a screeching halt before they had any chance to pick up steam, however, when Fon started blubbering word vomit all over her cousin _again_.

She caught the gist of his horrified mumbling -he believed that Skull should blame him, and that the fact he didn't was a product of conditioning rather than an honest reaction, apparentely- and immediately felt incensed.

_Thwack!_

Viper clucked her tongue. Fon's wide-eyed expression was still more repentant than surprised or irritated, which made the head slap she just delivered all that less satisfying. Oh well.

"Are you a moron?" She didn't even shout. She had exhausted her supply of outrage for the day. She was just being matter-of-fact at this point.

Fon didn't answer, still looking at her with a shocked expression. At least the guilt was slightly lessened in favor of incomprehension. Viper huffed and resigned herself to having to explain basic logic to _yet another_ teammate.

(Skull would have his turn, and she made sure to convey that with her side-glance towards him. He was not off the hook from the several heart-to-hearts those memories warranted, so he shouldn't look that relieved just because she had taken over with Fon)

"What your ancestors did is not your fault in any way, shape or form. You had no idea about what they did or to whom until you discovered that Magic is real, and even if you did, that curse was cast a _very_ long time ago. There is literally nothing you could have done"

And now Fon looked like he wanted to protest. Damn that man's stupidly rigid moral compass and sense of responsibility. Viper made sure to speak over him before he had the chance to do more than open his mouth.

"In fact, now that you've told us, getting rid of the remnants of the curse will be a piece of cake. _Especially_ because you are a descendant of the people who cast the curse in the first place. A little bit of your blood, a simple ritual and Skull and his line will be curse-free"

A bit of a white lie never hurt anyone. Getting rid of your run-of-the-mill curse wasn't that easy, much less the world's most powerful curse, but she wasn't technically wrong either. Fon's blood and a ritual would almost definetely be needed. And Hermione and Bill had just conveniently finished a decade-long curse-breaking project. They had known much less about the Arcobaleno curse through investigation than they probably knew off the top of their heads about the most infamous curse ever. With how much they had already investigated curses in general in their efforts to bring down the Arcobaleno system, getting rid of this one would probably be easier than any other time 'May you Live in Interesting Times' had been unraveled in history.

After all, the advantage of such a famous curse was that it was pretty well documented, including the ways to bring it down. Which was probably the real reason it had fallen into disuse, rather than it being too power-intensive, now that she thought about it.

Fon's eyes were still wide like he wanted to argue, but Viper simply turned around, treating the conversation as over. Skull immediately took over for her on the reassuring front, and the rest of the group was not far behind.

She, meanwhile, was going to borrow her cousin's magic mirror.

(Skull really needed to pay more attention to his surroundings. Busy comforting a teammate or not, he hadn't even realized when she just swiped it from his pocket)

"What has happened _now_?" Hermione's tired greeting let her know how long of a day the other woman had had, and her (lack of) faith in their ability to avoid trouble for three hours.

Viper couldn't help her sardonic smile at her excellent instincts. If only half of her deductive reasoning capabilities had rubbed off on Skull...

"We've discovered the origins of Potter Luck"

Viper was maybe enjoying the look of dumbfounded shock on Hermione's face a little too much.

" ...What? Wha-What is it? How can we get rid of it?!"

"The Potter line was apparentely cursed by Fon's ancestors. He didn't know until he discovered that Magic is real and connected the dots with the stories passed down through his line, though. They apparentely used China's most famous curse. You know, 'May you Live in Interesting Times'. Only the best for a Potter, naturally"

"Naturally" Hermione echoed faintly.

"I hate to ask this of you so soon after you just went through so much trouble for all of us, but-"

"No. No, Viper, don't even finish that sentence. Of course we'll help, you know that. Ha-Skull is just as much family to me as he is to you. And this project will definetely be easier. Will Fon be willing to help?"

Viper rolled her eyes even as she smiled at Hermione's words. She just moved the mirror so the witch could see Skull still trying to get Fon to stop apologizing in lieu of an answer. 'Will Fon be willing to help' indeed.

"I rather suspect his idiotic guilt complex will just get _worse_ if we don't allow him to" Viper said it in the same tone women everywhere used when uttering ' _men_ ', just to make her opinion of the whole affair clear. As she'd guessed, Hermione rolled her eyes with the appropriate level of disgust.

"Don't worry, I think we can get things ready for when you lot come back from pummeling what Death Eaters still remain in the continent" She answered, still shaking her head at the idiocy of wannabe martyrs.

 _Though Skull actually **did** become a martyr_, her traitorous subconscious pointed out. Viper repressed a flinch. It would take a while to properly process those memories.

"That's fast" And if her comment was more to distract herself than anything else, that was nobody's business but her own.

"Yeah, well, we started from scratch with the whole Arcobaleno mess because we knew **nothing** about the curse, might I remind you. So we designed a ritual that would work on _any_ kind of magic and remove it" Hermione's response was delivered with the faux-casualness of the truly smug, but Viper couldn't really resent being taken off guard enough that she actually jaw-dropped.

She had not wanted to help in the actual process of crafting the ritual because she had known both that she wouldn't be a lot of help with no magic and that she would become obsessed, but now she was doubting her decision. What Hermione had just described was suppossed to be _impossible_.

( _That's why Magic's 'rules' are inconsistent and unreliable_. _Because there are no rules at all!_ Okay. So maybe Verde had a point)

Viper couldn't really think of a response to that, except maybe to share Verde's theory, but she knew that way lay madness and an interrogation followed by attempts to prove or disprove it, so she just nodded dumbly and said her goodbyes.

(Both Hermione and Bill were going to be so unbearbly _smug_... Then again, they did deserve to)

She shook her head a little to dispel the _revelations about the nature of the world itself_ and cleared her throat. They _did_ have things they should be getting on with.

"If Fon is done with his sudden dive into hare-brained stupidity," she expertly ignored his mildly offended look "we really should get a move on. Aria, what do you want to do?"

"Actually, I would like to meet your godson Teddy, if at all possible. I don't believe I would be a lot of help dismantling the organization that abducted him, and there are still things about the Wizarding World I would like to learn"

Viper nodded, pleased with the response. Aria was being sensible not wanting to fight war veterans with powers she had never seen in real combat before -not that they would ever let her come even if she said she wanted to-, but she still said it in such a way that sounded like faith on their abilities rather than lack of her own. She hadn't missed either how Aria was looking in both her and Skull's direction when saying 'your godson', subtly concealing that she was not sure if only Skull was godfather or if Viper was godmother as well. They'd make a Donna out of her yet.

* * *

Aria was a little nervous about meeting an older boy, even if he was Skull's godson, though she blamed at least part of it on hormones.

(He _was_ handsome, even if they still hadn't gotten to talk beyond introductions. Skull and Viper seemed determined to get all of the details their family got for them _now_. In Aria's opinion all of that information plus the _already guaranteed_ prison sentences for life for the Death Eaters was overkill, but she wouldn't dream of telling either of them how to protect their Family)

She had her own reasons for wanting to meet Teddy, and they had little to do with learning more about the Magic World, even if she wouldn't say no to exploring it a little. She just didn't know how he'd react.

Aria let out a controlled breath. It'd be okay. The worst that could happen was that he said no, but she doubted he would. He had grown up with both Skull and Viper, which just about guaranteed a sheltered upbringing. He had to be chomping at the bit to give back some of that protection, especially now that they were going to be vulnerable as they grew at a much more accelerated rate than normal.

(She hadn't understood all the details as the group conversed with Madame Andromeda and the people who broke the curse, but she'd gotten the gist. Rapid growth and slight difficulty controlling their Flames as they adapted to the changing bodies and concentrated their inner energies on smoothing the process along as much as possible)

Aria was the Donna of an established and powerful Famiglia. Teddy was the heir of an established and powerful magical House.

Surely a little cooperation between them would go a long way towards... _dissuading_ anyone who would wish their family harm.

* * *

Colonello let out a feral grin when they finally reached the Scandinavian Federation.

Apparentely, Skull's family and their allies had bullied the Minister into putting pressure on the Death Eaters that still lived there to the point that they panicked.

So the morons had holed themselves up in the Manor of one of them instead of trying to escape. Idiots.

He climbed the rafters and set up his trusty sniper rifle. Invading the house would be more fun, but this was Skull and Viper's show. Kill-stealing would just be _rude_.

(Not that they were allowed to kill. Skull had met their incredulity with a raised eyebrow and a single word. "Dementors". Colonello was sure he wasn't the only one who mentally underlined his 'Don't ever piss off Skull' reminder in that moment)

The first Death Eaters -and they were even wearing the ridiculous masks, _what possible reason could they even have..._ \- appeared and Colonello let out a few Rain-charged bullets with a predatory grin. They dropped like flies.

It took them an underwhelming ten minutes to even cotton on to the fact that there was someone sniping them down from the roof.

They tried firing curses at him, but unlike them Colonello had actually chosen a _defensible_ position and settled in for the long haul.

Chipping away at the stone ornaments that provided cover while letting him fire through the very conveniently rifle barrel-sized gap took them another good five minutes, and when they did he only needed to lean slightly to the side to avoid the worst of the green-colored light.

Or he would have if Skull wasn't suddenly _right there_ , Propagating his stone defenses so the curse splashed harmlessly against them.

"You need to avoid _every part_ of the spell, Colonello!" Skull snapped before disappearing.

Right. This wasn't like gunfire, being clipped was just as bad as getting blasted full on. Colonello felt a little ashamed for not remembering.

(Going against ingrained battlefield instincts was hard, but that was no excuse. He could have died if Skull hadn't intervened)

The Cloud was now in the ground, taking down the last stragglers with quick stunners and judicious use of his Flames. He couldn't help smiling a little. This was something else he had forgotten.

With all the impact those memories had, especially at seeing him as a little boy way in over his head, Colonello had almost dismissed what he knew about his comrade.

Skull could fight. He was part of _Il Prescelti Sette_ , forgetting that fact was Stupid. Even if Colonello was not altogether pleased with how his friend had acquired that ability, the fact was that he more than pulled his own weight with the rest of them.

He saw the rest of the Arcobaleno exit the mansion and caught Reborn's eye. A sheepish shrug confirmed that Skull hadn't let them do a whole lot either. Colonello sighed. At least nobody had gotten hurt, and reminders that arrogance could and would get them killed were always valuable. Just because they were the Best at what they did didn't mean that they could go against a completely different way of fighting with only second-hand experience and expect to come out on top, at least not in the enemy's home turf.

He went back to watching Skull decimate what was left of the Death Eaters and smiled. Even if there were a lot of issues that needed solving with their friend, he was still the same person they had met so many years ago pretending to be a civilian and failing spectacularly at it. Bent, but not Broken.

Yeah, his baby brother would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I dislike bombarding you guys with overly long notes, but I couldn't contain myself. Feel free to skip this, I am just going to be nerding out about my own theory.
> 
> So I'm sure you all caught the implication in this chapter that magic literally sucks out wizards' common sense by virtue of "what the whole society believes, happens", but the reason is not just that most of them are dumb and "infect" the collective subconscious.
> 
> The answer is the Scientific Method. Specifically, the lack of it.
> 
> Since the Wizarding World isolated itself before its implementation was widespread, much less common knowledge, they still operate on Middle Ages logic in this universe. That is, the first explanation that looks like it sort of fits gets treated as gospel truth. They also tend to not question what they hear when it's from someone "respectable" (see: Dumbledore, Lockhart, the Daily Prophet), which is a logical fallacy called "argument of authority" and a really easy mistake to make even for people who are aware that they SHOULD be questioning what they hear.
> 
> My point is that Wizarding society is such a mess because its inhabitants were never taught to think critically, which should answer all our questions about Dumbledore. After all, guy was a Gryffindor who got famous by virtue of winning a duel. Sounds like a jock to me. But someone decided that that stellar career was proof of superior intellect. Worse, he informed Dumbledore of this. Fast forward a couple of decades and you get a society that looks a little like this:
> 
> Something unexplainable: *happens*
> 
> Wizarding society: "Dumbledore, what happened?"
> 
> Dumbledore: *gives the first explanation that comes to mind, no matter how ridiculous, odd or just plain nonsensical. If he can't come up with one fast enough he says nothing and lets his eyes twinkle*
> 
> Wizarding society: *agrees and applauds*
> 
> Dumbledore: "Wow, I'm so wise I surprise myself sometimes"
> 
> And since everybody believes him and belief and power are all that Magic needs to shape the world to fit said explanations, nobody ever caught the flaw in this chain of events.
> 
> And that's a wrap! Thank you to everyone who read (and hopefully enjoyed) this story. You can expect a couple of humorous omakes in this universe to appear in a couple of weeks, but the tale I wanted to tell can be considered finished. Until next time!


End file.
